


stardust trail leading back to you

by toffeelemon



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Men In Black AU, basically a london spy film with an 80s britpop soundtrack, bickering idiots to friends to lovers, dan howell hates humans, dan induced memory loss lol, dan is gay and he loves david bowie, featuring norman the sassy talking fish, mostly bants and minor action, peak spaceboi phil energy, phil lester is the most annoying human
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:35:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25360057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toffeelemon/pseuds/toffeelemon
Summary: Phil is a full time alien conspiracist, a PhD dropout using his extensive Astronomy knowledge to justify his quarter life crisis of running around London all day chasing so-called aliens.Phil just desperately wants to believe that he is not alone in the universe.Agent D is the best Men in Black agent that London has ever seen in the last decade, promptly forgotten, dismissed and excluded from human society. He likes it that way. An emotionally constipated galactic agent only has so much room in his heart for a handful of extraterrestrial immigrants.Until a particularly persistent man keeps disrupting missions, and a permanent fixture by the name of rookie Agent P eventually carves a space into Dee’s lonely existence.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 28
Kudos: 17
Collections: Phandom Reverse Bang 2020





	1. keep your electric eye on me

**Author's Note:**

> cheers to @brookwrites for the art (@shookethbrooketh on tumblr) and the incredible prompt, and @animad for beta'ing and dealing with me confusing astronomy with astrology for too many times
> 
> [art here!](https://toffeelemon.tumblr.com/post/623995698579423232)
> 
> [playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2JbWwzVV2SdnY6RwcXJJE2?si=FUWu-UeuRq-Mu6ybJmu-CQ)

It’s him again. The tall man in the stupid tin foil coat, causing a commotion in the centre of Trafalgar Square in broad daylight, drawing attention to the two Alcidians having a row. 

Undisguised Alcidians. It’s going to be a field day at work. 

Dee sighs as he watches from the sidelines, debating his next course of action. He thinks he recognises one of them. 

The shorter one is a registered citizen of London who goes by Rishan when he is disguised as a human and not causing trouble. Rishan is usually well behaved and runs a newspaper stand round the corner when he’s not ten feet tall and making a scene - Dee wonders who’s the other one pissing him off so badly. 

He could try to mediate (not exactly Dee’s strong suit), but there’s a significant public audience and the other Alcidian is not documented, so Dee just pulls out a blaster and thumbs along the capsules inside his blazer for the right one.

This is going to be fun damage control, Dee thinks, groaning dramatically to himself after discreetly shooting a sedative into a twelve feet tall alien, almost missing his shot. Well, as discreetly as possible when you’re dressed like you’re going to a funeral, midday in central London (and holding a blaster. Dee is not supposed to brandish weapons in public at all, but no one’s really looking).

Dee loves London. He didn’t grow up here, but, once he moved here, he couldn’t leave. The job aside - where else can you find this much extraterritorial life on Earth - he also loves how Londoners just do not give a shit, despite all sorts of weird occurrences happening right before their eyes. This obviously makes his job easier. For example, how hardly anyone is blinking an eye at the Alcidian brawl before them right now. 

But nope. This one stupid lanky man manages to be in the way between Dee and his  _ Best Agent of the Month _ yet again. Dee has lost for a few months in a row now, coindentally since he started running into this guy, because the stupid idiot loves drawing attention to himself (and mostly the aliens).

Dee watches as Rishan wrestles the other Alcidian to the ground, who is seemingly going limp in his grasp. 

Quite a few people are now watching the spectacle, holding up their phones to film. Amongst the commotion is the man Dee always runs into, flailing about and trying to break up the fight it seems (what kind of sane human does that), making it harder for Dee to put in another clean shot. 

He’s also holding a video camera. 

Dee grunts and rolls his eyes. He can’t wait to go back to HQ and wipe every trace of this incident off Youtube, that’s going to be  _ so much fun _ .

He cannot believe his luck that it’s the stupid tin foil man again. (To be fair, it’s just a holographic coat, and not actual tin foil garb. Except for being disgustingly easy to spot, it’s not actually that atrocious fashion.) 

London is so big, and yet, Dan always runs into  _ this  _ particular alien conspiracist - tall, pale, black hair, that one weird guy that you can always spot a mile away - every time there’s an extraterrestrial sighting this side of the Thames. Dee might as well start tracking him instead - this man is so accurate in chasing after alien sightings that he could actually steal Dee’s job. Not that he’d be good at it, judging by the way he always gets into trouble and makes Dee’s life harder.

You would think they’d be more common, but, surprisingly, Dee hasn’t had to deal with many of these (humans that just won’t stop believing, for the love of Bowie) since he started working for the Men in Black.

Dee curses under his breath as the other Alcidian gets the upper hand again and Rishan is slammed to the ground. They’re snarling and screeching, it’s not a pretty sight.

Tin Foil Man is rallying the other civilians to help him now, like that is a logical response to an extraterrestrial bar fight. As if this isn’t just some weird social experiment in the middle of Trafalgar Square that no one will take seriously. (That’s what Dee is going to say later, when he’s frying everyone’s brains so he can go home in peace.) 

Dee finds a smoke bomb in his pocket, and he’s tempted to use it. It would easily knock out both of the Alcidians unconscious, but with how many humans are in proximity, especially the stupid conspiracy theorist prancing around uselessly, it isn’t really an option anymore. 

Dee could only imagine his damage report: _Wednesday 2pm,_ _knocked out two large Alcidians in Central London, as well as a tall idiot who just wouldn’t leave Agent D alone and a dozen civilians._

_ It would be much easier if you had a partner to back you up _ , Norman’s voice in Dee’s head unhelpfully supplies, but  **Dee works alone** . 

That’s one of the main perks of the job, really. No people, no distractions. Dee absolutely detests people. He’s content to live in the shadows of London, getting his emotional fulfillment from the high of chasing extraterrestrial creatures alone. Humans are fickle and upsetting and definitely not worth his time.

And incredibly stupid. Dee sighs to himself as he eventually resolves to making himself seen and intercepting the fight himself. Not usually his suave style, but it’ll have to do. 

Dee walks up to the two tangled Alcidians calmly, pointedly ignoring the panicked look from Tin Foil Guy.

“Rishan, I’m going to need you to back away. You’re violating Article 23 right now, you know you’re not supposed to break your disguise in public,” Dee announces authoritatively, as he steps closer, armed with his blaster.

Rishan’s voice is distorted as he snarls in an inhumanely low voice. Dee just about makes out something that sounds vaguely like English.  _ “He started it.”  _

Dee cocks his blaster in one fluid motion and throws a stink eye at Tin Foil Guy. His pale blue eyes are wide and bewildered as he finally,  _ thank Bowie _ , steps away from the scene. 

If aliens aren’t scary enough, at least big guns are. 

Dee smirks at him, just because he can. It’s time to get to work.

Dee ends up having to wrestle the Alcidian down, claws and all, before jabbing a strong dose of sedative right in the shoulder. 

He gets thoroughly drenched in slime - whatever, this isn’t his favourite suit anyway. Rishan finally shrinks back into his human form, sheepishly looking up at Dee where he landed on his back on the pavement. 

Dee narrows his eyes at him as intimidatingly as he can whilst looking like a wet dog. Disgusting. Dee doesn’t want to ponder on whether the unknown Alcidian he just captured is one of those rare human-eating members of the species. Where exactly does all this slime come from? Yikes.

Dee runs a hand through his curls to slick them back, trying not to grimace at how gross he must look right now, before putting his hands on his hips, scowling at Rishan.

“You - you stay there whilst I deal with this mess, you’re coming back with me for a statement. And  _ you _ ,” Dee points at Tin Foil Guy, who is somehow still filming with his video camera. He widens his eyes at Dee, somewhat fearfully but also in awe, and immediately steps closer. Gullible idiot. 

Dee flings his Ray Bans on in one smooth motion, and wastes no time to fish out his Neurolyser and zap the guy stupid first.

As he gazes at Dee blankly with those glassy blue eyes of his, Dee snatches the camera off his hands and expertly deletes all of the footage of the entire fiasco. He hands the camera back to the guy when he’s done, plastering on a fake sweet smile, dimple popping and all.

“I’m so sorry about that. You just stumbled into the set of a multimillion Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster and the director is very cross that you filmed some things, so she threatened you with an expensive lawsuit and you deleted all of the footage. I’m just the friendly extra in the strange costume.” The guy just blinks his stupid blue eyes back at him, eyebrows arching into his pale forehead. 

Dee deems the conversation over, turning to zap the other unassuming Londoners as well, leaving Blue Eyes to blink his way back to reality. 

As back up finally (Fucking finally!) arrives to haul the unconscious Alcidian away and Dee is walking to the transport with a firm hand on Rishan (human appearing Rishan, in jeans and a hoodie), he looks behind his shoulder to see the familiar silver coat disappearing into the crowd. 

Dee nods along distractedly as Rishan rants about how he’s done nothing wrong and everything is the Alcidian mafia’s fault. 

Yet another day at work ruined for Dee with another major alien sighting and stubborn conspiracy theorists. He hopes he doesn’t see that guy again soon. 

Phil sighs as he flops into bed, still in his coat. What a shame that today’s sighting was a scam again. He flips the video camera on, going through the footage, and frowns to himself when he finds nothing from today. He can’t believe he was actually made to delete everything - his memory is so hazy from stumbling onto the Hollywood film set. Maybe it’s the shock. Phil wonders if Steven Spielberg was there, maybe he was so starstruck that his brain just blocked out the entire encounter.

Part of Phil is convinced that he has been running into some psychic extraterrestrial creatures lately though. It’s too much of a freaky coincidence for him to keep chasing after scams and come home with a shady memory. Maybe it’s a particular species who really doesn’t want to be discovered? Phil is already excitedly running through the possibilities, making up stories about an underground alien species who controls half of London. (Not that any alien species wouldn’t be underground. At least not in London, to Phil’s knowledge.)

Phil is goofy, but even he knows that his friends and family think he’s mad. They pity him because the Astrophysics PhD was too hard on him, and now Phil is a uni dropout who lost the plot and is a full time conspiracy theorist on the internet. 

But as stupid as it sounds - brace yourselves - Phil swears that  _ aliens exist _ . Something happened, back when he was still in uni, and Phil swears on his life that he  _ saw _ \- and for someone who spent his entire childhood looking at the stars, some things cannot be unseen. 

Phil has spent his days chasing extraterrestrial sightings in London ever since. 

He earns his living by ghostwriting Physics papers for desperate (and rich) students by night, and otherwise venturing around London, sometimes following clues from his blogger networks. Most of the time just looking for something out of the ordinary. A lot of weird crap goes down in London every day, it would be less believable to say that aliens didn’t exist. 

Phil refuses to admit that he’s just a crazy unemployed dude plagued by a quarter life crisis. He swears he’s onto something here, and anyway, it isn’t that he’s doing nothing with his life. 

He’s technically a blogger - he’s quite popular in the London UFO sighting community. And a podcast host - if three loyal listeners count. His blog is slightly more popular, it actually hosts one (1) ad that makes money. (Phil has no idea how his alien tracking blog has the same demographic as fishing equipment, but he’s not one to judge, if fishing rods help pay the bills.)

Phil likes to think that he’s basically some alternative influencer on the internet, when he’s not spending time actually working like a real adult - by cheating the education system. Sort of. It’s a capitalist society - if kids can pay, he’ll write papers. Phil has no respect for academic integrity, and from time to time he likes to remind himself that he actually knows a bit about galaxies and rocket science. 

He is definitely not  _ traumatised by a childhood of being the Strange Kid _ and most definitely not  _ projecting his loneliness onto the concept of extraterrestrial life _ , thank you very much, Mum and Martyn.

Phil clears his head of today’s disappointment, and sits up to grab his laptop. He’s not convinced that he just stumbled onto a film set today in Trafalgar Square - he remembers mostly being equal parts terrified and thrilled, the adrenaline bubbling away under his skin. He vaguely recalls large claws and sharp teeth and loud snarls. It felt so real, it couldn’t be just movie magic. 

Also, the whole fiasco is just plain suspicious. What films even get made in the middle of Central London on a busy day, it doesn’t feel practical at all. 

(Actually, Phil has stumbled on several before, he’s just stubborn and reluctant to accept the fact that he’s met with a dead end again. He wishes there’d been signs. Or actual barriers shutting off the shoot. So Phil didn’t have to see some really realistic movie magic to drive him crazy.)

Phil goes on a google trawl, hopefully finding the footage that he lost but other people might have caught, or at least any evidence of this alleged blockbuster. 

Phil doesn’t know if the absolute blank search on Youtube makes it less or more suspicious. He even trawls through the location tags on all social media and somehow there’s no trace of the commotion he saw today, except for a few tourist photos in front of the National Gallery in which you can just catch a glimpse of some tall blurry things in the background. Phil frowns as the five pixels glare back at him in the blown up photos.

He does find a Daily Mirror article though, uploaded today. Phil actually cheers to himself when he reads the headline:  **_Top secret Hollywood project wreaks havoc in Trafalgar Square!_ **

Disappointingly there isn't any more useful evidence from the article, beyond the blurry tourist photos Phil found on Instagram, but the article does clear a few things up. 

Maybe Phil did just stumble into a sci-fi film _ about _ aliens, but he writes it up as his daily blog post anyway, copying the link of the article into his post. 

He scrolls through his posts once it’s uploaded. Phil hasn’t exactly been on a roll lately, more often than not his investigations lead to a dead end, or are a false alarm like today. 

Phil’s last great hit is his masterpost on the London blackout - that was a while ago, but he’s still really proud of it. 

He’s so sure that he got it on the dot; the blackout most likely had something to do with a mass migration (from out of Earth, duh). Phil remembers spending months surveying every single tube station with his radio frequency detector, and cold nights camping out in the middle of nowhere in Hampshire tracking UFOs. 

There was a supernova a few lightyears away that week - Phil had already been tracking that star system since he was a student, and he was convinced that there was life on one of the further planets. It’s only Phil’s luck that the inhabitants of that planet decided to take refuge on Earth - that’s what he theorisises had happened, anyway. He didn’t actually catch much on those nights except for suspicious ultraviolet waves and strange cricket noises that definitely did not belong to the British countryside. Phil checked - British crickets are daytime insects. 

He faithfully believes that he was present at a mass landing of an entire planet’s worth of refugees, although he didn’t see anything worthwhile with his own eyes. Phil was open minded - who’s not to say that extraterrestrial species transcend human vision. Phil doesn’t need to see to believe, he was just happy to be part of it.

It was the best time of his life - the only downside of London is that he misses stargazing. His telescopes sadly sit in the corner of his wardrobe, dusty and aching to be used on the rare night when the London night sky is clear enough. The light pollution is terrible, it makes it impossible for UFO sightings. (Honestly, the fact that there  _ is _ a UFO sighting community in London at all is already impressive, it didn’t take a lot for Phil to become one of the more respected members.)

Phil is bored, and stubborn, so he ends up reading the Daily Mirror article again. Which leads him to checking out the journalist, because  _ Damien Hunt _ is such a silly name, and Phil wants a distraction. 

Curiously, Damien Hunt has a portfolio of articles almost exclusive to explaining UFO sightings. 

Phil scoffs at  **_UFO over Wimbledon is actually space waste!_ ** \- it’s so bad that it’s almost like they’re deliberately trying to hide something. That’s not how gravity works, Phil rolls his eyes to himself. Oh well, it’s the Daily Mirror after all. 

Phil opens several more articles in a new window, humming to himself. Trashy journalism or not, this Damien guy seems to follow a lot of UFO sightings, most of which Phil has investigated before. Maybe he should send him an email, see where he gets his intel from. 

Phil writes that email quickly, before cracking on with the essays he has due for this week. It was good typing warm up anyway.

Phil tries not to remind himself that he’s ultimately an unemployed fraud. It all started rolling downhill when he withdrew from his doctorate program (read: encouraged to drop out). Phil was incredibly lost in life, and one of the undergraduates he made friends with at the lab roped him into cheating with her coursework in exchange for 30 quid, and next thing Phil knew, he had gotten a reputation for excellent academic fraudulent services. It’s thoroughly ironic that Phil didn’t manage to get his degree, but his ghost lives on in the faculty. The Dr Lester that will never be can live vicariously through ghostwriting undergraduate papers. 

Phil is definitely not just a mad man chasing aliens and his quarter life crisis.

Dee is used to chronic sleep deprivation, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t hate working Centaurian hours any less. 

After the Trafalgar Square clean up, he spent several hours taking a statement from Rishan at HQ, took a quick shower in the changing rooms (the undocumented Alcidian was indeed one of those vampirish-human-life-force-sucking types - absolutely revolting), and after three macchiatos it was back to his desk for damage control. 

If someone ever told him that being a space secret agent involved so much boring internet trawling, Dee might actually have turned down the job. He is basically an expert in optimising oddly specific google searches now, but by the time he’s taken down most of the footage from Youtube, it’s already the 10th hour of his shift. 

Today was a tricky one - there’s still Instagram photos from tourists and probably a handful of odd Snapchat videos floating around that’ll escape the grasps of the omniscient Men in Black censoring. 

Dee groans to himself. He still has time, so he decides to write an article. Maybe his  _ Best Agent of the Month _ can still be salvaged, if he handles this well.

Tabloids have been the age old go to source of information when it comes to intercepting alien activity on Earth (well, in the recent decade, Facebook groups have become a strong contender), but Dee came up with the brilliant idea of infiltrating the tabloids themselves early on after he joined. Neurolysers could only do so much, and only on a small scale, but writing shitty articles have so far been quite effective in slowing down speculation every time something as public as the Alcidian showdown today happens. People are unbelievably gullible, most of the aftermath of Dee’s operations are usually contained within 500 words of pure clickbait. 

He actually enjoys making up these incredibly absurd headlines - Dee was a writer in his past life and has always had a flair for dramatics. He can’t help but snort in between giggles as he types out fake quotes from the alleged director of this sci-fi film that he lied about today. He publishes it by midnight, then goes to the break room for yet another well deserved coffee, deeming this a closed case. 

(Well, there’s the larger problem of the Alcidian mafia infiltrating from Belgium, but that isn’t just Dee’s responsibility. It’s not his fault that the Brussels branch is shit at their job.)

Dee comes back to his desk way later than he anticipated, after a long distracting chat with Norman (that fish is so damn chatty), to see a notification from Damien Hunt’s email. Dee didn’t even remember having that on notification. 

_ Damien Hunt _ \- what a ridiculous name, the human resources department really played a joke on him when they assigned it to Dee as one of his identities. Their creative juices are really running dry lately. 

The other day they made him an MI5 agent called Dante. They don’t even try to be convincing anymore - Dee doesn’t understand why all his names have to derive from his old name. He has no sentiment attached to his old name, it just reminds him of secondary school and generally feeling shit about himself. 

Dee uses Damien to write articles for the Daily Mirror. Maybe someone is complaining about him using their photos - even better, the less photographic evidence, the better for the MiB. Dee is getting better at journalism etiquette now, but sometimes he still has to deal with the technicalities of being Damien. 

He opens the email, because procrastinating his call with the Brussel branch is very tempting right now. 

The email is from a randomer on the internet hoping to collaborate on “compiling information on UFO sightings”. 

Dee rolls his eyes - obviously he’s not going to respond, that’s literally his entire livelihood, to destroy evidence of extraterrestrial life. 

The Gmail is linked to a Youtube channel, and, because this has to be the strangest email Dee has ever received, he decides to find out more about this _ Phil _ who approached a journalist for UFO intel. 

Dee ends up spending the last three hours of his shift investigating (stalking) this alien enthusiast. 

The Youtube channel regularly uploads shitty podcasts featuring “Alien Activity” in London. There’s five subscribers. It physically pains Dee to listen to some of these but the episode about the London blackout is scarily accurate at some points. 

Dee gets sucked into the vortex of  _ AmazingPhil’s Association of Astronomy and Alien Activity  _ (that’s a fuck ton of alliteration right there) - a blog page with truly tacky graphics and clickbait titles to rival Damien’s own. No wonder this guy wants to collaborate with Damien, he’s a full time ridiculous alien content creator. 

There’s a small icon on the right hand corner on  _ About the Author _ , and because Dee has half an hour left before he’s finished for the day, he clicks on the tab.

It’s that fucking guy. Black hair, pale skin, piercing blue eyes staring into Dee’s soul through the screen. 

He really is relentless. Obviously Dee will not reply to the email now. He closes the tab before he can be haunted by Tin Foil Phil’s pale face for any longer.

The thing is, Dee probably has a fair share of recurring alien conspiracists encounters, he just doesn’t quite remember all of their fleeting faces, just like how they don’t remember him (humans are especially boring after meeting all sorts of other things on the job). 

But Phil is hardly a face to forget about. Dee can always easily spot him from a mile away, with how they’re both a feet taller than the general population of London. And his face is just so strange - the black hair offsets his paleness, his eyes are so blue, and what even are those perfectly arched eyebrows. 

A silly part of Dee’s sleep deprived brain starts entertaining the idea that maybe this guy is an undocumented alien who was extremely good at hiding from the MiB - after all, nothing shouts unsuspicious alien as much as posing as a tin-foil wearing, UFO chasing human. Dee should maybe flag up a case on him, start stalking him instead of the other way round. Let's see how  _ Phil _ would like that. 

“It’s you again!” Phil yelps, flinching away as Dee saunters towards him, appearing out of nowhere from the corner of the alleyway. 

Dee just about manages to stop from pulling out his Neurolyser from his chest pocket. He can’t pull out a suspicious device just as Phil is starting to realise he had his memory wiped (multiple times), that would be too obvious. 

Dee tries to look bored, as much as he can, as if there’s nothing out of the ordinary about a guy in a suit rummaging behind a closed vape shop in Zone 2 next to some seriously suspicious space junk. 

Phil is still staring at him, wide eyed and cautious as if Dee might bite. Dee has seen him less on guard with actual feral aliens. This man really is something else.

“What do you mean it’s me again?” 

Dee is putting all of his teenage drama classes to use by this point. (MiB has acting training too, but mostly teaching how non-human agents should act like humans. It’s utterly hilarious.)

“It’s, it’s. I don’t know! I’ve seen you before, so many times, always in that suit, but I can’t remember -” 

He’s muttering to himself now. Dee reckons it wouldn’t take a lot for him to persuade this persistent alien conspiracist that he has truly lost it.

"Deja vu?" Dee supplies helpfully, which he then realises was not helpful to himself as Phil narrows his eyes at him.

Dee curses internally, forget about his duty for the day, he'd be lucky if he manages to escape AmazingPhil.

“You’re not human, are you? Oh my god, this is so exciting!” 

Phil’s train of thought is so erratic that it gives Dee whiplash. Dee barks out a shocked laugh. This is ridiculous. AmazingPhil is absolutely bonkers.

“Okay … you know that aliens don’t exist right?” Dee says as skeptically as he can manage, trying to turn this around. 

“That’s exactly what an alien would say.” 

Dee is paralysed by the bolt of sky blue glare. Damn it, he’s really bad at (human) social interaction. This is what Dee gets for having a talking fish as his closest and only friend.

“What are you doing here?” Dee asks instead, genuinely curious. 

He’s giving up on the pretense now, he can just find a better opportunity to zap Phil later. He needs to know how AmazingPhil always ends up on his trail.

“Uh, obvious! Same reason you are here. Investigating abducted persons - or should I say, abducted  _ aliens _ .” 

Phil attempts to wink conspiringly and Dee is tempted to blast him with something right now, subtlety be damned. Dee is debatably the best shot amongst MiB in London - he’ll take a chance if he gets to take Phil out, together with his annoying stupidity. 

He’s still talking, _for Bowie’s sake_.

“...That’s a tough one, isn’t it? In the films it’s always the other way round, the aliens kidnapping us. I feel bad for kidnapped aliens, who’s here to protect their rights? No one even knows they exist! Well, I guess  _ I _ am looking for them right now-”

“Close. It’s more like a fugitive - I think there’s a stash of firearms left behind here somewhere,” Dee corrects him nonchalantly, surveying the site and declaring it a lost cause for today. 

Dee might be dropping the pretense with Phil for now, but it doesn’t mean that he’s going to let AmazingPhil (and his goddamn video camera) near his crime scene any time soon. He can’t trust the Neurolyser anymore - he has zapped this poor guy a handful of times now and yet, he remembers Dee. Best not to give him a lot of memories to wipe in the first place. 

“You coming?” Dee says cooly, walking out of the alleyway with his hands in his pockets and head cocked to the side. 

Obviously Phil follows, because he is unbelievably moronic and addicted to danger. Dee basically implied that he could be any species that could probably eat him alive right now, and yet, here Phil is, grinning like an excitable puppy as he follows Dee into the pub on the next street. Dee was counting on Phil to be so blindly trusting, to be honest - anything to get him away from the crime scene. They’ll have to sort that out before Phil comes back, rummaging through space junk again.

Dee doesn’t know what he’s thinking, but he ends up buying both of them drinks at the bar and sitting down at a booth with AmazingPhil the astronomer and alien enthusiast across from him. 

Phil eyes the pint of lager suspiciously for two seconds, but otherwise complies without prompting. Dee doesn’t know how to shake Phil’s stalking - he just needs a window when Phil trusts him to zap him silly, until all traces of Dee are gone from his mind. But they’re in a pub right now, and there’s witnesses, and Phil looks like he’s about to interrogate the life story out of Dee.

(He can try. Dee doesn’t talk - the entire MiB Force already knows he’s a hard one to crack.) 

(Phil must be happy now - he’s finally getting his meet up with Damien Hunt the shitty journalist.)

Dee ends up being vague and whimsical, just to satisfy Phil’s hunger for knowledge slightly whilst keeping Dee (and the Men) mysterious enough to be untraceable in the future. 

Phil is talkative and likes to interrupt Dee’s sentences, so he fills in the gaps with his own misinformation easily, and Dee doesn’t stop him. He didn’t even have to make up a fake name - Phil just waved him off and assumed he didn’t have one in Earth English. 

At the moment Phil thinks Dee is an intergalactic vigilante trying to escape the attention of Earth’s law enforcements. Dee diverts the conversation by testing the theory that Phil is actually an extremely under the radar undocumented extraterrestrial, which evokes some hilarious defensive stammering from Phil. 

Dee feels a bit silly, like they’re two tin foil hat-wearing men meeting up and exchanging stories. Under the pretense of a universe without the MiB, that is basically what’s happening right now. Dee was, once upon a time, also just another alien enthusiast who spent a bit too much time looking at the stars. Only he was lonely then and now he has a madman companion. 

Dee gets Phil to go through his deductive processing to end up in the same place as Dee in the alleyway, and is surprised at how good Phil is at investigation. Dee doesn’t want to admit it, but he is impressed. After all, whilst he is an egotistical bastard who thinks he is indeed the Best Agent in London, for someone to creep up on him like Phil does, it takes some skills. 

Dee knows that spontaneous recruitments sometimes happen, when a resilient civilian stalker winds up in HQ and just never leaves. Dee doesn’t have a partner and he’s sure that if he just flags it up with H, the head of MiB London, he would be happy with Dee bringing in pretty much anyone he wants. It seems like the easier solution to the problem of the persistent Phil. If you can’t beat them, get them to join you.

But Dee works alone. The human condition is an ultimate vulnerability. Look at him now - he indulges in Phil’s stubbornness for once, and now he’s wasted four hours of his workday in a pub and left a crime scene behind. Imagine this man being a permanent fixture in his life - Dee just physically, mentally and emotionally is unable to carve out a space for another human like that. He has only a very small space in his heart to lend compassion to another, and it’s already occupied by his coworker and arguably only friend, a sarcastic talking betta fish. Dee doesn’t need a partner.

Phil is fully trusting him now, happy to rant about aliens and be validated for the past few hours, and Dee seizes the chance to pull out his Neurolyser. 

“Ooh what’s that, is that tech from your home planet -”

Dee slams his pint glass inconspicuously in time with the mechanic zapping sound to cover it up. By the time he pockets the Neurolyser, Phil is blinking back at him blankly, eyes the purest sky blue.

Dee feels so, so guilty. He climbs out of the booth and leaves after muttering some lame lie to Phil’s face again.

Phil blinks his way back to Earth to find himself sitting in a pub booth alone at 4pm, with no clue as to how he got there. He looks around for clues - there’s two empty pint glasses on the table, and the pub is pretty much empty besides him. Phil would panic, but this is a common occurrence by now - it’s aligning with his theory that he’s been running into some psychic species lately. He thinks he had his memory wiped. Again.

Phil tries to trace back. The last thing he remembers was chasing a lead at a closed down vape shop, which was a fluke. (You’d be surprised to find out how many aliens are involved in corner shops in London. Truly the backbone of human society.) 

Was it a fluke? He doesn’t remember. And he was talking to a guy in a suit outside the shop. A truly unremarkable guy that Phil just can’t remember. In the back of his mind, he sees the beginning of an image of a faceless white man, kind of tall, probably as tall as him. Phil remembers not having to crane his neck down to speak to this guy, which is unusual. 

Is this guy significant? Is he it? The clue he’s been chasing after?

Loads of people in London wear suits. Phil could be hyper fixating on the wrong thing. He swears he was speaking to a guy in a suit at the film set in Trafalgar Square too. Come to think of it, there’s always a guy in a suit involved whenever his investigations hit a wall. This cannot be a coincidence. 

Phil walks towards the bar to see if his tab has been settled, because whilst he’s confused and doesn’t know what’s going on, the excuse of him being ‘memory wiped by an alien’ doesn’t sound very convincing if he walked out on an unsettled bill.

“Oh, your mate already paid,” the bartender replies with disinterest, but Phil presses on in desperation.

“My mate? Who?” 

The poor man is squinting at Phil like he has gone mad, but Phil doesn’t care, he needs answers.

“You alright there pal? Something hit your head? You know, your friend, the bloke in the suit?”

Phil almost cheers with glee. 

He’s right. He was right. Take that, Mum. Take that, Martyn. Something is out there, it’s not just in his head.

Phil all but runs home or to the tube station that will take him home, anyway. He’s excited. This is one of the few times he has concrete proof that they’re not alone as Earthlings. 

Phil is not alone. 

He runs past all the shops and thinks about all the aliens that he’s always suspected were behind the post office counter. He was right all along.

It’s already dark out by the time he’s overground at his station again. Phil looks up and smiles at the stars, even though they’re more London’s city lights than stars. 

Dee is running out of options, AmazingPhil has him backed into a corner. The agency hasn’t noticed it yet, doesn’t know that Dee is the culprit, thank Bowie, but if he doesn’t deal with this soon, Dee might be demoted so far down he won’t even hold a blaster anymore. 

Despite all of Dee’s better efforts to get rid of Phil’s attention, to stop this civilian from disrupting MiB operations (in Phil’s defense, he’s just chasing aliens with no ulterior motive), or at the very least suspecting their existence, somehow it has all backfired. Now Phil is directing his attention to specifically hunting down Dee, who he has run into so many times and yet has only a suspiciously hazy memory of. 

You see, the pressing issue is that AmazingPhil’s blog has posted a growing thread about “suspicious suit-wearing humanoid policing extraterrestrial activity in London” and it’s amassing more attention day by day. Other people who the MiB had fooled thus far as “deja vu”s are now finding solidarity in Phil’s comment section. Knowing Phil, it will take him two weeks before he starts a support group dedicated to investigating the MiB. 

Dee has no idea how on Earth (excuse the pun) Phil still remembers his existence, even after Dee probably gave him permanent brain damage. Dee had never wanted to disappear off the face of the Earth so badly ever. He hates attention (with the rare exception of being the notorious  _ Best Agent of the Month _ ) and at this rate Phil is basically dedicating his entire life to him. Dee is in a proper crisis right now - and this is compared to when he eagerly joined the MiB as an angsty young adult who had had enough of everyone in the world. Screw everyone else, AmazingPhil is somehow still a bigger pain in the arse.

Dee weighs out his options. Even if he does manage to stifle this particular instance for once, there’s no saying that Phil wouldn’t come back to investigate the existence of MiB again sooner or later. Also, just by his luck, or some cruel joke the universe is playing on Dee, at this rate the only way to guarantee an end to his chance encounters with Phil is if Dee just retired. Phil is relentless, and his alien activity detection skills are up to par with Dee. 

All signs point towards recruiting Phil to be a Man in Black. It makes perfect sense - it will put an end to all this unwanted attention; on the existence of extraterrestrial life, the MiB, but most importantly, Dee himself. Instead of getting into trouble, Dee would be praised for bringing in a skilled rookie and he doesn’t necessarily have to become partners with Phil. He could just leave Phil to his own devices once he’s inducted, and then Dee could go back to his merry way of being an unnoticed agent operating in the dark of London. No more four hour mission detours to the pub, potential casualties in alien brawls, or stupid clickbait blogposts. From then onwards, they’ll just be Agent D and Agent P, casually acquainted coworkers minding their own business. 

Dee groans at his screen as he watches the AmazingPhil blog go off with activity. He’s doing this, there’s no turning back. Well, unless he’s not H’s favourite anymore and can no longer do as he pleases.

Maybe, if he’s lucky enough, Phil might not even want to be an agent at all, and they could just mutually agree to leave each other be. Could Dee be intimidating enough to threaten Phil to keep his pretty mouth shut? Is that something they do over at Mi6? Dee saw it in a film once.

Dee pouts to himself at his desk. He can’t believe he’s actually admitting defeat to an alien conspiracist. He gets his journalist email open, and replies to the email that Phil wrote him a while ago. Dee has no doubt that Phil would turn up to the appointment - that’s how desperate for adventure and mayhem Phil is.


	2. bound for a star with fiery oceans

Phil gets a lot of email feedback from his latest post, which really boosts his morale after the streak of dead end cases lately, but he still perks up eagerly at Damien Hunt’s one week late email reply. Maybe they’re offering him a Daily Mirror writing gig, how exciting.

_ Dear Phil _

_ Glad to hear from you! Saw your post about the man in the suit, I have intel. Meet me at 174 Queen Victoria Street at noon on Monday. I’ll tell you  _ **_everything_ ** _. _

_ Regards _

_ DH _

Despite the clickbait articles, Phil immediately decides that this guy from Daily Mirror must be legit after all. He also knows about the man in the suit! Phil has not received such validation since the day he got his offer to study Astrophysics. Phil is giddy. Monday can’t come soon enough.

Whatever Phil expected when he left Blackfriars underground station right next to the address, it was not the man in the suit himself. 

“Ah! It’s you!” 

Phil jumps away at the sight right away, putting his hands out in front of him even though it’ll probably do nothing to protect him. This is a trap. He’s going to get his memory wiped again. 

The man just looks at him, half amused.

“Hi Phil. I’m Damien,” he smiles, and Phil steps closer tentatively, after a moment of being safe from any psychic attacks. 

He regards the man - perfectly normal looking human, benign looking brown eyes, and even fluffy hair. It may be a humanoid disguise, but it’s a good one. Phil’s brain finally catches up with him when he decides he’s not in mortal danger.

“Oh… oh wow. That makes perfect sense! Being a journalist to cover up your tracks so they don’t clock your  _ alien activity _ ? That’s so clever! But are you gonna wipe my memory again -”

(Dee sighs dramatically at Phil’s antics. Dee wonders if the induction courses include ‘How to shut up in certain situations 101’. Phil is like Norman the talkative fish, but even worse. )

“Do me a favour? Don’t say anything until I’m done telling you everything. And boy do I have a lot to tell you.”

Dee smirks and walks towards the shop in the corner, and Phil follows, despite everything. He has a real life alien (pretty much confirmed) with him! Phil is not going to walk away from this once in a lifetime opportunity. They enter the seemingly unsuspicious typewriter shop (okay it is maybe slightly suspicious. How does one sustain a typewriter business in this day and age, and it also says closed out front). The old man at the counter doesn’t acknowledge them except for glancing at Phil.

“Morning Charlie, you’ve got a visitor’s badge?” 

  
  


Dee tries to be nonchalant about it, but Charlie raises an eyebrow at him, the most emotional expression that Dee has seen on the old man’s face for years. Dee has never brought anyone back who isn’t a fugitive or a suspect - and even though sometimes it’s difficult to tell, Phil definitely stands out too much to not be human. He’s wearing a NASA jumper for Bowie’s sake. Phil has a steep learning curve ahead of him.

  
  


Charlie wordlessly passes him a sticker, and Phil barely has time to blink before Dee slaps the sticker on his chest and has pulled him by the denim jacket lapels through the doors behind the old man. Phil yelps as the ground falls underneath him. Dee can’t help but smile to himself.

The tiny room is actually a lift that takes them to an entire underground world of alien central galore - all Phil can do is gape whilst Dee laughs to himself in amusement. At least Phil is finally shutting up. 

Phil looks around in awe at all the different species walking past them, trying not to trip on the tiny creatures that crawl past his feet. There’s holograms and tech that should not belong to this human century - Phil is getting whiplash. 

“I’m actually Agent D, an agent for the worldwide organisation Men in Black, an independent agency monitoring extraterrestrial activity on Earth.” Dee explains as they walk past what looks like an alien arrival terminal and into actual offices. 

Phil wants to ask questions, but Damien - D said not to, so he keeps his mouth shut as he peers at everyone at their desks in black suits. Some of them aren’t human, but Dee looks pretty ordinary compared to some of the creatures.

“The catch is - we don’t exist. All Men in Black assume the identity assigned by the agency, and live their life accordingly to make sure we’re under the radar, as well as keeping the aliens under wraps ourselves. So, no contact with society from hence forth, and  _ definitely _ no more signposting extraterrestrial sightings on the Internet.” Dee stops walking, and turns around to look at Phil. “So, are you in?” 

Phil blinks back at Dee in confusion, even when he isn’t zapped by a Neurolyser for once, unlike most of their encounters.

“Are you… recruiting me? As a space agent. Oh my god, a space agent,” Phil starts muttering to himself, and Dee has to hold back from rolling his eyes.

“Yes, I’m asking if you want to be a Man in Black. You know, be a full time alien enthusiast, but without broadcasting it on the Internet.” 

“Uh, hell yeah?! I mean, I have a lot of questions, but definitely. Yes. Oh my god, yes.”

(Dee didn’t know he was holding out for a particular answer, but he actually feels relieved when Phil doesn’t reject his offer. See, human interaction makes him feel vulnerable. Dee doesn’t even know why he cares whether Phil rejects him or not.)

“Alright then. Follow me,” Dee moves along again. 

For someone living on a 37 hour day, Dee sure is in a hurry all the time. Phil practically jogs behind him.

“What. Right now?” Phil blurts out, in shock. He’s always let the adventure lead the way for him, but even this is a bit too fast paced for Phil. 

Dee looks back toward him judgingly.

“Unless you have something more important to do?” Dee squints his eyes at him as a challenge, and Phil shakes his head. 

This is it. Phil is committed. He simply cannot walk away from this, he’s been waiting for his entire life. To find out all the secrets of the universe. There’s nothing that he can’t give up for this life.

“No! Not at all,” Phil grins, and Dee cringes inwardly at the enthusiasm. 

Phil doesn’t know what he’s leaving behind, although Dee doubt that he has much of a life outside of creeping on the innocent alien immigrants of London.

They’re having a coffee over paperwork, and Dee is struggling to keep Phil’s attention when he keeps chit chatting with Norman instead. They’re already surprisingly getting along - Phil is obsessed with the talking fish, it almost inspires jealousy from Dee. Dee glares in the direction of Norman’s tank, before returning to Phil.

“So, you no longer exist. Phil Lester no longer exists, and neither does AmazingPhil. We’re going to make you go off grid. You’re not to contact anyone unless you’re told to, not even your family. We’ll sort them out with a cover story -”

“Are you human?” Phil asks with a puzzled arched eyebrow, and Dee has to sigh in exasperation. 

This man and his constantly misplaced priorities. Dee wonders if that is his method of deduction - just breaking through mental blocks with extremely strange logic and reasoning. Dee is telling Phil that he can’t keep in touch with his loved ones anymore, and Phil is concerned about whether or not he’s human. 

“Yes I am,” he answers, only because Phil is persistent and Dee is tired of trying to get around it. He tries to not squirm under Phil’s curious gaze.

“Oh. Did you have to do all of this? Disown your family and stuff?” Phil’s blue eyes are unwavering. 

Can Phil stop making it about Dee? Dee hates it. 

Fucking humans. He likes aliens better, they’re usually self absorbed enough to not be curious about Dee himself.

“Yep. Can’t say it was very hard, to be honest,” Dee lets a bitter chuckle escape him, breaking his stoic persona. 

Phil is taken aback for a moment, before returning to his goofy excitable self.

“Yeah, it’ll probably be fine. My family will probably just think I’ve gone off the rails and disappeared to Nevada for a year … again,” Phil laughs to himself, and Dee stops frowning just before it gets weird. 

Dee doesn’t like being reminded that he had a family (a debatable statement in itself).

“Speaking of Nevada,” Dee diverts, awkwardly, “you’ve gotta stop wearing these stupid NASA shirts. From now on, you’ll only be wearing The Suit. You’ll wear what we assign you, live where we assign you, eat where we allow you to, to make sure you stay hidden.”

“Suit looks nice,” Phil smiles slightly, and Dee hates how he imagines Phil directed that particular attention to him.

“Right. If you go home now, there would be people helping you move into your new accommodation. You’ll find a new wardrobe and some basic necessities, although all you have to do is turn up in your suit at 8am tomorrow Earth time.”

Dee stands up from his chair, and Phil takes it as his cue that their conversation is over, scrambling up hastily. Dee stretches out a hand to him.

“Welcome to the Men in Black, Agent P. I hope you pass probation soon,” Dee says it just out of courtesy, but he can’t help but root for Phil a little. After all, it’ll reflect on him if the rookie he recruited turns out shit. 

Phil grins. Agent P. He already weirdly likes it, ready to ditch Phil Lester (and even AmazingPhil) in the dust. Agent P sounds larger than life, that he’s part of something. He supposes he finally is now.

When Phil gets home, there’s two moving guys waiting for him  _ inside _ his apartment. Phil was ready to cry burglar, but his sharp eye quickly registered that they weren’t human. Slightly too tall, and the gills under the collar was a dead giveaway. Right, this is his life now.

His moving people don’t acknowledge him except grunt and nod at the truck, after packing up Phil’s entire apartment scarily fast. (They leave a lot of things behind, notably his colourful wardrobe, which he tries not to mourn too much.) 

Phil’s new apartment is smaller, but way too central for anything he could ever afford. It’s soon clear to him that the entire block is full of non-humans (Phil doesn’t know how he has not passed out from the excitement yet), and the landlady is a nice 6 feet tall lady(? Do aliens even adhere to human concepts of gender?) with skin tinged with green. MiB really takes living off the grid seriously - Phil is starting to think from now onwards he’ll only be allowed to visit alien-run enterprises. 

Thankfully most of Phil’s accumulated random crap is still intact, although he doesn’t think Dee would approve of his so-called “equipment”. (A radio frequency detector is useful, Phil would die on that hill.) His new wardrobe, as promised, is filled with black suits, and only black suits. To be fair, they are very nice - he doubts he’ll look as suave as the rest of the MiB though.

He wonders if he will ever see Dee again - is Dee in charge of mentoring him too? Phil is excited about his life ahead of him, but he can’t help but feel quite nervous about it all. Dee is the most familiar thing in the in-loop of all this alien craziness right now, Phil hopes that he can continue to hold onto Dee as an emotional clutch. (He has unknowingly been for months now - without stalking Agent D, Phil doesn’t really have anything else to do with his life.)

Phil does see Dee later that night, when he goes exploring up and down his apartment building. It’s full of alien tenants and exciting within itself, but Phil is bored and doesn’t know if he is allowed to go anywhere else. Dee lives on the top floor, and Phil runs into him letting himself into his apartment as he makes his way down from the roof garden (Phil bets Dee has a view of the Shard too - maybe Dee is a Big Deal in the MiB).

“Dee!” Phil exclaims a bit too excitedly, and he tries to ignore how Dee winces and looks dreaded to see him. It  _ is _ 3 am after all, and not everyone is too excited to sleep and an insomniac like Phil. 

“ _For the love of Bowie_ , you scared me, P,” Dee sighs, key in the door. 

Phil blinks at the letter. Right. He doesn’t own his name anymore. He smiles gingerly at Dee, loitering in the doorway. 

Dee didn’t know that P was moving into the same block - he had specifically picked this accommodation once he had enough clearance to pick his own, for the sole reason of staying away from other agents. Dee isn’t exactly known for being a socialite, and he prefers it this way. He can’t believe he still somehow managed to have P clinging onto him. He’s like a bloody Andromeda parasite, something you can’t shake off even passed parallel universes and black holes.

Dee moves to unlock his door, deeming this interaction over, but P curiously leaning in to peer into his apartment makes him hesitate. 

“I have so many questions for you Dee,” Phil says desperately, and if he can tell that Dee is definitely not thrilled to have this conversation, he doesn’t show it. 

It’s those infernal blue eyes that pierce right into Dee’s soul. And the fact that Dee really, really hates people getting a glimpse of his home. Otherwise, he would never had found himself here, propping himself up against the wall of his hallway after his 16 hour shift, answering all sorts of questions about his own species identity (Dee has no idea why was P so convinced he was non human - he grew up 2 hours away from London), their alien neighbours, and the intricacies of the extraterrestrial economy on Earth.

Dee doesn’t see P for the next two days (Earth days, so a shift and a half really), much to his relief. He couldn’t forget about P right away, because Dee had some paperwork to tend to, and an interesting array of IDs of Phil Lester to purge. 

Phil dropped out of a scholarship for Astrophysics at University College London. Huh. Dee himself is on the pathetically under-qualified side of the MiB force, in contrast to some agents here - Oxford professors who found out a bit too much. He didn’t really expect the absolute nutter AmazingPhil to be on his way to a PhD. 

Not that Dee is jealous. He personally fucking hated uni, like everything else in his life before the age of 20.

Dee hasn’t heard from P in a while (40 hours is more than enough time to stop two intergalactic wars), so he reckons they’re hopefully not going to cross paths unnecessarily anymore (or as infrequently as one could whilst being coworkers and somewhat neighbours). Finally some peace and quiet of being alone.

Dee should’ve known it was too good to be true.

He gets called to H’s office in the middle of the week, and because he’s one of H’s favourite agents who’s usually left to his own devices, Dee had the wild imagination to hope that it might be a promotion. That he’ll finally get his own office. Or at least a particularly tricky case that would not be boring and would entail Dee being allowed the Aston Martin. Dee is dying to get behind the wheel of that bad boy.

Whatever good news Dee envisioned, it definitely wasn’t the rookie P sitting in the chair across H’s desk, grinning up eagerly at him. P’s suit is pressed and snug around his shoulders, and his hair is slicked into an effortless quiff. 

Dee hates how smug he looks. He ignores P’s gaze and goes to sit down in the other chair. His side is burning from the stare, but he carries on ignoring it, looking steadily at H instead. 

Dee cannot believe P is still set on deciding whether he’s an alien. There’s so many other more interesting aliens to scrutinise, P should stop wasting his energy before his eyeballs fall out.

P is staring at Dee in relief and definitely a bit of awe, having been dying to spot a familiar face throughout training, but Agent D just looks grumpy when he sits down and not once sparing a glance at P. 

P wonders what he did wrong - he has done nothing but pass all his classes with flying colours. (Out of everything, telling his lefts from his rights was the hardest. At least some species sympathised with him.)

“Dee! I have great news for you.”

Agent H, the head of MiB London, is doing that thing again. That annoying golden retriever thing where he gets overly excited and tries to please everyone. Even Dee has a slight soft spot for him (just slightly. Full offense, H is so stupid - Dee doesn’t even care that he’s a war hero. Dee still wishes they had a woman leading them instead. There isn’t a Woman in Black who doesn’t get shit done better.)

“You have a new partner! And here’s your new case, you can take the Aston Martin.”

H winks, and Dee can’t help but perk up at that. The Aston! He tucks the envelope in his blazer pocket, not registering what H dumped on him until a second after.

“A  _ partner _ ? What? _ Him _ ?” 

P looks hurt at the accusatory tone - but Dee doesn’t care. It’s hardly personal, D doesn’t do  _ partners  _ at all _. _ In fact, D doesn’t do humans (not in the innuendo way, fuck off) - humans get in the way and make mistakes and are bad influences on Dee. He’s much better off alone. And he’s definitely not letting a rookie tag along on an Aston worthy mission.

“Yeah! Weren’t you the one to bring P in? His performance is great, well done -”

“He’s a rookie! Shouldn’t he be like, on admin duty? On the immigration desk, at most. Surely it’s not safe - I don’t think P should leave Headquarters until he’s been here longer,” Dee argues, trying to sound responsible and like he actually cares about P’s wellbeing. 

Which he definitely doesn’t, Dee is only worried because he doesn’t want to babysit P, and have the annoyingly cheery guy right on his tail again. But H doesn’t need to know - he thinks Dee is some half sentient empathetic creature given how many fake smiles Dee has given him throughout the years. Being antisocial doesn’t work well with the boss.

“Agent P is perfectly capable. His scores almost beat your academy record from back in the day!” 

Okay, now Dee is properly fuming. He has no idea how P managed to do that. He’s pissed, and maybe just a tiny bit impressed. Dee is the best shot around here - he will not believe that P can aim properly until he sees it with his own eyes. 

H takes the opportunity to press on when Dee is lost for words for once.

“Didn’t you say it yourself that his investigative skills are unparalleled? I’m sure P would be a great help to you!” H beams at Dee, who’s narrowing his eyes at his senior.

P hasn’t said a word through all this, just sat in his chair passively with a puppy dog pout on his face when Dee spares a glance his way.  _ David Bowie save his poor soul _ , Dee is not getting out of this. 

“Right. But just this once, H. Once he’s properly inducted he’s on his own. Also if he screws up, I’m ditching him,” Dee rolls his eyes just for emphasis, and H smirks at him. 

Dee hates H. (Dee hates self assured handsome men always getting what they want, because Dee is weak.) 

H stands up to clap both of them on the shoulder, a subtle cue to kick them out of his office. P obviously ignores this cue or is oblivious to it, thanking H profusely and being way too enthusiastic to be cool. Dee wants to sink into the ground on behalf of this embarrassing newbie. 

Dee is marching at that inhumanely fast pace of his once they leave H’s office, and P is skipping along to keep up again. They reach Dee’s desk first, and when P stays glued to Dee’s side, watching him eagerly with a hawk’s eye, Dee huffs and stands up to walk them both to P’s new desk instead (at least the desks are alphabetical so Dee has just about enough distance away from P). If P is going to stalk his every move all day, Dee might as well make sure they don’t make a mess of his own desk. He pulls out the pristine card from the envelope, and scans it with the computer. P is quiet as he watches with wide eyes, and the two of them exist in the same space uncomfortably as they watch the screen load.

“Agent H kind of looks like Thor. Oh My God,  _ is _ he Thor?” 

Dee knows P has a vivid imagination, but the stupid questions really have no end. He sighs dramatically whilst typing his login on the keyboard, not once turning to look at P.

“You do know that Thor is a fictional character right?” 

No matter how much Dee tries to deadpan, it does not dampen P’s mood at all. P looks at him seriously.

“Is H actually Chris Hemsworth then? I’m not even surprised if he is,” P ponders, and Dee has to scoff. 

“Mate, you have to stop thinking that everyone isn’t human,” Dee muses, swirling the mouse around. And, because he’s feeling like a little shit and is almost sure of how P would react, he adds, “Do you have an alien kink or something?”

P turns a brilliant shade of red and stammers. Dee almost cackles out loud. He knew P would get embarrassed at any sexual insinuation - all space nerds do. Agent P probably stands for Agent Prude now. Dee laughs internally at his own joke.

It’s Dee’s trump card to make people uncomfortable and shut up. (On the contrary, sex does  _ not _ make Dee uncomfortable. In fact, he’s So Comfortable that he has a chronic case of making bad innuendos. Sex doesn’t bother him, it just isn’t his thing. And no, Norman is wrong in thinking Dee has a hyper fixation. Dee is not going to let a fish psychoanalyse him.)

“Oh, someone’s leaving London in a hurry,” Dee exclaims as his case file comes to life, finally giving P a break. 

P leans forward eagerly to inspect the red dot dashing across the screen, despite not understanding a single thing. 

Dee decides to not be snarky for once and helpfully explain. (Maybe then P would stop invading his personal space.)

“So, white dots are temporary visitors, and orange dots are registered residents of London,” Dee points around the screen. “There are several red dots, politically sensitive key persons that we usually keep tabs on, because if they do anything shifty it’s usually a warning for something much larger. Our jurisdiction goes out to the extent of the Home Counties - but usually trouble stays within Greater London.”

“Let me guess, someone suspicious is leaving London?” P perks up, clearly in his element. 

Dee smirks, then frowns when he clicks around further.

“It’s Mollie the Squid! Mollie?! Why the hell would she be leaving London?” Dee mutters to himself as P listens with bewilderment.

“Squids are pretty benign, aren’t they…” P chimes in, and Dee squints at him. 

“How would you know?” Dee asks, almost hostile. 

P shrugs.

“I’ve met a couple Squids. At least I think they were Squids. Most of them live in the East End, right?” 

Dee glares at P, unimpressed, until he squirms a bit. P was correct - the MiB really has slacked off on the entire keep humans in the dark act recently. Well, at least P isn’t a civilian anymore. 

Dee swivels his chair back in place, ignoring P.

“Anyway. Most Londoners aren’t supposed to leave London anyway, and Mollie especially has no reason to. She’s been here for the past 60 Earth years…”

P leans over Dee’s shoulder again, towering over Dee seated at the desk. 

“How is she moving so fast?” P wonders, and Dee has to agree, even though he’s irritated and wants nothing more but to shove P away from being plastered to his back.

“Well, we should find out,” Dee stands up abruptly and starts walking.

“Do you even know where to go?” P gapes for a second before following Dee in haste. He’s always chasing that man.

“I have a few ideas,” Dee stops to look over his shoulder briefly, giving P a cocky wink. He shouldn’t look cool doing it, but P can’t find it in himself to be annoyed. P is too giddy.  He's about to go on his first mission.

“You coming, rookie?”

The Aston Martin is classic and flashy, well kept despite being several decades old. Dee grins at P genuinely as he climbs into the driver seat. P is more nonchalant as he gets in. (He can’t drive anyway, he kept failing his driving test.)

“I thought you said the MiB is supposed to keep a low profile,” P comments, but Dee only hums back as he adjusts his seat, ignoring P’s doubt.

“Does this piece of relic even work anymore?” P questions, more concerned now as the engine rumbles. 

Everything is aged leather and way too classy for anything P has encountered before. Dee rolls his eyes, before pulling them out of the garage of Queen Victoria Street.

“Relax, didn’t you hear they’re making them electric now?” 

P hadn’t. He wouldn’t have guessed that Dee was a car guy, but he doesn’t know a thing about Agent D, to be honest.

Dee really has no regard for discretion - they practically fly over Blackfriars as Dee stomps on the gas. P is almost surprised that he hadn’t noticed Dee around sooner. Agent D might as well be the most flamboyant agent in London. 

P huffs out a breathless giggle as they swerve around the traffic.

“So where are we heading?” 

P has to yell through the loud wind filtering through the windows Dee had purposefully rolled down. 

Dee has no right to look so excited for someone who has wind ruffling through his curls right now. Dee smiles ahead of him, hand gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“Mollie the Squid is important because she’s a diplomat. Earth is an outpost for them, really. If she’s fleeing, she’s mostly likely making a pitstop in Bromley. The Squids have a reservoir there. Who knows what she’s picking up - assets, weapons, or they might even have a vessel hidden there. So hopefully we intercept before she gets there.”

P finally sinks into his seat, satisfied with the answer he was seeking. They’re definitely exceeding the speed limit - P is baffled at how the car easily manoeuvres through the stubborn traffic. He bets this damned car runs on alien fuel.

Dee is beaming. He’s been dying to get behind the wheel of the Aston - it’s one of the fastest (disguised) vehicles the MiB owns. 

It’s almost worth trading with having a partner tagging along - P hasn’t been a hindrance so far. He’s mostly just stunned in awe, like he is now, watching Dee drive. Dee pretends to not see, and acts as suave as he can be. 

Let him gawk, Dee feels pretty cool right now.

As they get out of the city centre and onto a motorway, Dee drives faster if that’s even possible, and reaches out to fiddle with some buttons on the dashboard that definitely didn’t come with the original Aston Martin DB5. 

60s rock begins to blast out of nowhere inside the car, and P isn’t sure if he could distinguish alien tech from magic anymore. He lets out a giggle, indulging Dee a little. P didn’t expect this much _ fun _ from Agent Dee - he seems so uptight and stoic most of the time. 

“You do know that David Bowie is dead, right?”

P squints at Dee skeptically, as Dee belts along to  _ Rebel Rebel _ without a care in the world - the fifth Bowie song playing in a row. Dee has a noticeable obsession with David Bowie, with how he inexplicably exclaims Bowie’s name all the time. P thought it was just another odd alien thing.

Dee’s eyes twinkle as he turns to look at P. 

(Look at the goddamn road ahead please, P fears for a moment as they zoom past a roundabout.)

“Nah, he’s just gone back home.” Dee’s smirk is cryptic, eyes looking ahead and almost fond.

“Home? Finally! Someone I got right for suspecting to be an alien!”

Dee snorts unattractively through his nose. “P, you think everyone is an alien. It’s your bloody alien kink.” 

P blushes against his will, because he always does. He hardly knows what a kink actually is - he doesn’t want to show it, but sexual innuendos unnerve him. 

“I do  _ not _ have an alien kink! And, you’re the one who’s obsessed with David Bowie.  _ You  _ have an alien kink,” P argues back childishly.

“Fine, I worship Bowie because he’s my predecessor. I have big shoes to fill as Agent D. Also, he  _ is _ practically a god. He comes from a long line of deities from one of Saturn’s moons.”

“Oh. No wonder you always swear by his name, I thought that was weird.”

“Yep. The God most humans believe in is stupid and not real. I’m better off sticking to the Gods from Saturn.” Dee mutters to himself darkly, but P catches it, despite the deafening wind around them.

“Not a fan of Christianity then?”

Dee flinches, ignoring P’s question.

“We’re here.”

Dee is acting way too wary for a simple interception mission. P watches in worry, adrenaline spiking in his chest as Dee leaves the Aston at the entrance of an unsuspecting park and moves stealthily behind bushes, motioning for P to do the same. P tries to be smooth as he gets out of the car and follows Dee.

The park is quiet, save for the rustling of leaves and P is properly creeped out, mostly because of how Dee is reacting. He swears he sees Dee thumbing at the gun in his blazer pocket, and P hardly tries to keep his voice down as he whispers to Dee in panic. 

“Dee, shouldn’t I have a weapon?”

Dee jabs him with an elbow and shushes him. He doesn’t seem to be bothered by P’s bodily safety at all, continuing to edge forward and further into the park with a spooked P behind him.

“First lesson of being an agent, P. Deescalate, not aggravate,” Dee says wisely, as if that explains everything. 

P almost scoffs. Well, noble of Dee to have a gun in his pocket and ask P to be a pacifist.

“Right, says the man with the gun.”

“I know not to use it. But you don’t yet.”

They’re arguing in hushed tones as Dee spots wayward motorcycle tracks in the rubble and starts following them. Dee is vaguely concerned by P distracting him, but P doesn’t back down.

“I’m not gonna shoot at a _ Squid _ !” P argues, not even trying to whisper anymore. Dee elbows him hard from in front and P grunts in pain.

“That’s speciesist. See? You need more anti-bias training. You’re still on probation.”

“And you’re being too hard on me.”

Dee shushes him for real this time. P sees her, a wide figure from the back crouched on the ground, fussing about on what looks like a manhole cover, and spots the definitely alien vehicle parked hazardously on the side of a path. Dee holds his breath, shifting his stance slowly behind the foliage. 

But he’s not stealthy enough. 

In a split second, Mollie flips around, not even hesitating as she pulls out a terrifyingly massive blaster and shoots in the general direction of the two agents before she could even look at them. P squeaks and dives behind a tree, whereas Dee ducks and rolls out of hiding, seemingly hardly fazed. 

Dee stands up, eerily composed as he dusts the front of his trousers and approaches Mollie with two palms up, not even reaching for a weapon at all as he promised P. He’s even chuckling in amusement. That agent is out of his mind! P decides his best bet is to stay in the refuge of this tree.

“Mollie! Is that how you greet your favourite human?” Dee chastises lightly, and Mollie - a human-looking enough person with long wild hair and tan skin, squints at him in disapproval. 

“Dee.” She acknowledges him sheepishly, not entirely thrilled to see him, but it could be worse. 

Mollie doesn’t exactly hate Agent D, and that’s a lot coming from one of the most notorious characters from the Squid community. Dee is marginally more popular with the extraterrestrial population of London than his usual human acquaintances.

“Where are you off to? Why the hurry?” 

P swears Dee almost sounds warm and actually concerned for the Squid fugitive. Well, to give her some credit, a suspected fugitive.

Dee peers over Mollie’s shoulder and into the manhole curiously. It’s a doorway into a much bigger hideout underground, and with a sharp eye Dee can already see a handful of items that are prohibited on Earth: various weapons, spacecraft fuel, generators and reactors that could easily blow the entire planet up in misuse. 

“Mollie,” Dee says softly, “What trouble have you gotten into? Who are you running away from?”

Mollie, the old stubborn Squid she is, just grunts through her nose (the human one). 

Dee sighs. He feels stupid for giving aliens, who have probably lived several centuries more than him, a pep talk, but Dee can only go so far in being a lenient agent. 

Norman says he has a soft spot for non humans, which Dee vehemently disagrees with. Dee just thinks that unlike humans, other species are more credible and worthy of kindness. Maybe Dee just started out at this job feeling too much kinship in being outcasts of society, and now it’s a force of habit. 

It’s good for the job anyway. Be nice, gain the immigrants’ trust, and reduce conflict. 

“You know that if some shit was going down you can just get the MiB to handle it, right? That’s why we’re here. Don’t want you to accidentally start an intergalactic war on Earth again,” Dee lectures her lightly, and Mollie scoffs yet again.

“Right, you stupid humans. Like you know a thing.”

Okay, Dee has taken enough abuse for today. He stands up straighter, going back to being a stern agent. If Mollie doesn’t want to spill, then so be it. 

He beckons P out of hiding, who squirms before walking into Mollie’s view cautiously. P sends Mollie a pathetic little wave and Mollie all but snarls at him, almost reaching for her blaster again. Dee pushes her human hand down.

“Dee! I didn’t know you kept other humans.” Mollie says as if P isn’t made of flesh and blood and listening right there. 

Dee sends a devilish grin at P, more than happy to bully P together with Mollie, and snickers.

“Oh, you’ll like this one, Mollie. He really is as stupid as they come. Never shuts up, either.” 

The two of them laugh as P protests with red cheeks. (P is not Dee’s little human pet!) They only sober up after a full on cackling session.

“Okay, so here’s the deal. You have about a dozen different items that are not allowed on Earth - how about we get them all on a transit back home and off Planet Earth in the next hour, and that way the MiB won’t confiscate it?”

Mollie pouts, but doesn’t retaliate. She’s been caught red-handed; the Squids can’t afford the loss, and Dee is giving her a nice way out. She doesn’t want to explain herself to the MiB about why she’s planning an escapade - Dee himself might be smart, but people are stupid. 

“We’ll have to take that away too - you know the drill, Mollie. No alien tech in broad daylight.”

Dee throws an MiB issued magnetic lock at P, who dutifully sticks it onto Mollie’s shiny motorcycle. That way she has no choice but to abandon it to be confiscated by the MiB. Mollie actually growls in annoyance at this.

“Dee! I live an hour away!” 

Dee shrugs, hardly sympathetic. 

“I can give you a ride home if you want,” Dee grins, pointing through the leaves to show off a peek of his Aston. 

“Right, so you can make a detour at MiB and drag me to them. No thanks.” Mollie has her nose turned up, ignoring Dee. “I’ll take the fucking tube then.”

“Don’t forget to pay your fare too,” Dee says cheerily as he waves Mollie off, who’s already started leaving the park. 

Dee isn’t worried - his smartphone will tell him if Mollie continues to travel out of Greater London, and she knows better than to do so after getting busted.

P yelps as a tentacle flies out of nowhere from the direction that Mollie had disappeared, ducking out of the way of said tentacle slapping Dee lightly on the cheek. Dee seems hardly fazed as he continues examining the manhole cover, not even bothering looking back.

“See you around Mollie!”

“Fuck you, Dee.”

“Maybe next time! I’m not into Squids.” 

(P isn’t even sure if Mollie heard that, but his cheeks heat up anyway. One day he’ll get used to Agent D being crass.)

Dee isn’t bothered by the tentacle attack at all, still deep in thought and frowning at the arsenal Mollie has left in their possession. 

The mission goes on, since they haven’t come any closer to figuring out what might be brewing for the Squids in intergalactic political terms. 

At least Dee had a crack at the Squid’s hideout - the MiB had known about it for years, but no one ever knew where the entrance was, and he doubted that anyone but a Squid could manage to unlock it anyway. Dee feels bad confiscating Mollie’s stuff, but these heavy fire arms are better off the planet. 

All P could do was gawk and blink at the entire exchange between Dee and Mollie the entire time. He’s almost surprised at how friendly Dee was to a semi hostile Squid - P swears Dee isn’t even half as friendly or at least bantering in a friendly way when it comes to other humans. 

P has heard all sorts of stories about Dee around Headquarters - that he’s antisocial, that he’s slightly mythical and the best shot in London, that he’s a ruthless agent. P hadn’t expected Dee to be one who tries to be a pacifist and actually has aliens’ interests at heart. But again, no one has really worked with Dee before P, so no wonder all these misconceptions are around. 

Dee seemed slightly disheartened as they waited for backup to come pick up all the various high risk arsenal, but his spirits have somewhat returned on the drive back to HQ, the Aston slowly cruising now in the sunset with Duran Duran playing through some sort of speakers, somewhere. 

P looks at Dee pensively for most of the journey, watching the wind make its way through his fluffy brown curls. 

Agent D is a more puzzling species himself than most that P has encountered.

When they get back to HQ, Dee is all quiet grunts and bad vibes, half heartedly sending P back to his desk with some case files about Squids to brush up his political knowledge, before going back to his own desk to fret. 

P frowns at Dee’s retreating form - everyone here doesn’t seem to care about Agent D’s moody state, or maybe they have tried before and learnt better than to keep trying. 

P ends up being really productive for the rest of his very, very long shift (Thank Bowie for coffee, as Dee would say. Norman is very good at giving instructions on how to work the coffee maker). 

He reads up on the entire history of Squid immigrants in London, learns a lot more about Mollie and how much of a fearful figure she actually is. He learns that Mollie is responsible for mitigating at least a dozen intergalactic conflicts in the Milky Way alone. P even reads the Anti Bias Staff Manual that Dee dropped on his desk several hours ago, just to keep his mentor happy. 

P has an hour left of his shift (2am Earth time, it’s almost unbearable, but before, a lifetime ago, he was usually ghostwriting uni assignments at this hour anyway) when he decides to sift through one of the cold cases on the server.

Trafalgar Square - that sounds familiar. As P scrolls through the document, he slowly catches on that he had been involved in this one. It has been filed as MINOR DISPUTE and OVERDUE MISSION - apparently the feral Alcidian he encountered a few weeks ago is a member of a Belgian gang, but no agent could be bothered to follow up on the case after Dee. P doesn’t mind calling up the Brussels MiB, he loves talking to strangers. 

A chatty phone call with a weirdly flirty Belgian agent and another coffee break with Norman later, P leaves the break room to walk right into Dee, who’s standing at the doorway with P’s work issued mobile in hand.

“Shift’s over. Let’s go back to our flats.” 

Dee doesn’t say anything more after handing P’s phone over and turning on his heels. P glances at Norman in bewilderment at Dee’s unusual friendliness, but all the fish does is swish its tail. P hurriedly catches up with Dee anyway.

They walk back to their apartment block together because it’s 3am, and walking is the only viable option. P would never have walked the equivalent of several tube stops past midnight before taking on this job, but he guesses that everything has been put in perspective now that he’s supposed to be unafraid of aliens. 

As usual, Dee always walks a few steps ahead of P, measured and calculated because, whilst he’s always ahead, P never gets too far behind. At a crossing, Dee finally stands shoulder to shoulder beside P and swings his head around to acknowledge P. 

“You didn’t have to do that. Close the Belgium case. Thanks.”

Dee almost sounds reluctant to thank him, but P doesn’t take it to heart. He didn’t expect Dee to feel indebted anyway. P just shrugs with an easy smile.

“I had time. It’s okay. It’s good to have closure after getting amnesia at Trafalgar Square anyway,” P pokes his tongue out carelessly, and Dee chuckles despite himself.

“Yeah. Sorry about that.” Dee laughs at his black leather boots, avoiding eye contact. 

“I mean, you were just doing your job. As long as you promise not to brainwash me without my consent again.” P shrugs and teases lightly.

“Sure.”

P watches a stray cab turn the corner, easily distracted as he always is.

“So when am I getting the tech to brainwash people?” 

Dee isn’t looking at P anymore,  but the mirth in P's voice is clear . 

“In your dreams, P. With great power comes great responsibility.”

P makes a childish noise of disappointment, and Dee snickers before shoving him gently at his side again. 

Having a mentee slash shadowing partner isn’t that bad after all. Dee has someone to make fun of, someone to make him feel better about himself. Dee isn’t actually a bully, he would stop if P is actually hurt by it - but this is fun. This takes his mind off things, just for a second, and it’s nice to have P around to pick up all his abandoned cases and boring paperwork, since P is still bright eyed and easily excited by the universe. 

They realise way too many minutes later that the light never turned green because no one bothered to press the button. 

P is too good to cross a red light, and Dee is getting soft for humanity again, because he follows suit. Because P is older than him and probably didn’t really have a life or friends, but is still so polite to the universe.

Dee cannot believe hanging out with another human made him wait for a green light to cross the road. What has he become.


	3. black holes and revelations

The grand conspiracy of a Squid Exodus remains a cold case for the next few days - P is pretty sure Dee is still investigating the case on the down low, but Dee consistently refuses his help. 

“H said I’m your partner now. Not just for chasing down Mollie the Squid, you’re stuck with me regardless. Hey! You can’t just ignore me,” P finally grumbles on the third day of work, pouting unhappily at Dee’s desk. Dee groans.

“Fine, I’ll show you how to run some errands. And then you’re doing it by yourself.”

P is actually having a fun time trying to figure out whether Dee’s bad mood is in character or still a residue of his foul mood from the unsolved case. At least he’s putting his detective skills to good use.

Dee was wrong in saying that P would be bored of the usual patrol routine though. They have been paying visits to corner shops and newspaper stands, Dee chit chatting with the alien shop owners and teaching P how to sieve through tabloids for intel. P is taking to it like a fish to water.

Of course P finds visiting extraterrestrial civilians the most exciting activity on Earth. He bombards the poor aliens with the dumbest and weirdest interrogations in the galaxy, and somehow still manages to charm the shit out of a few, Rishan the Alcidian included, who fondly remembers P. Dee would be lying if he said he wasn’t slightly jealous of P, even though Dee would never let himself be considered the endearing stupid human MiB agent.

They eat noodles for lunch at a takeaway place that is mostly run by a talking dog, and P can’t stop abusing Dee with invasive questions again.

“I’m surprised that the aliens don’t mind you patrolling their places so often. It’s not that nice, checking up on them like they’re assumed to be criminals. Most of them are actually really nice people.”

P is surprisingly introspective for someone who doesn’t really think before he speaks. Dee is taken aback for a moment, before P’s messy slurping interrupts his train of thought.

“Yeah, humans suck. Sometimes I hate how the MiB takes the whole space policing too seriously. Who are we to declare ourselves the lawmakers? We’re unbelievably incompontent as a species. I’m going to be honest, Earth would have saved itself a lot of trouble if some agents weren’t so trigger happy.”

P’s eyes are comically wide as he stares at Dee seemingly innocently sip at his water.

“Okay… who are you dragging…”

“No one!”

“No wonder no one likes you, agent D,” P tuts, daring to be cheeky despite all the unsubtle complaints his mentor has been making about him ever since they were paired together. 

Dee only scoffs incredulously in response. 

“Hey! Aliens like me well enough, okay. I’m South London’s most loved human agent. Not my fault that  _ you _ don’t like me.”

“ _ I  _ like you well enough,” P mutters under his breath, and Dee looks the other way, pretending not to have heard.

True to Dee’s word, he has taken to ignoring P again quickly. Even Norman is starting to criticise P for giving him too much credit, when P complains about Dee to the talking fish in the break room, and theorises on how Dee’s mood swings are the clues to how the unsolved case is going.

“Or maybe Dee is just an arsehole,” Norman blurbs bluntly, and P frowns at the fish tank.

“Hey! Don’t be rude. Dee is pretty nice, to non humans anyway. I thought he was your best friend around here.”

“Yep, unfortunately he is, so trust me when I say - Dee is just a rude git. Not a tortured genius or whatever you think he is.”

All P responds with is a scoff, but he tips the remains of his crisp packet into the tank anyway, and Norman gladly munches on the crumbs.

“You’re too nice, agent P. What a big ol’ softie.”

P knows that he could sometimes be described as having a too optimistic outlook on life, but his instincts can’t stop obsessing over Dee’s morality. P has a habit of blindly believing that the good in people exists, but maybe he’s right about this too. If even aliens exist, what’s a little hope?

(He just wants to be Dee’s friend.)

P finally adapts to the odd working hours by his second week as an agent. On the day when he happens to finish work at Earth time 5pm, P gets into a good mood and decides to get back into his old hobby of stargazing after a rejuvenating nap and an entire pizza to himself.

It takes a while for central London to get dark enough for P to see anything - he leans against his telescope, distractedly gazing at the people below from the rooftop of his apartment building. 

Civilian life seems so far away and trivial now, P smiles to himself sadly. He would never trade his new life for the world though, every day has been so exciting. P doesn’t think he could go back to normal daily life ever again, after meeting hundred year old settlers from Mars. Normal is boring. 

Looking at the stars and at people walking around the street like ants makes P feel melancholy though. Nothing makes you feel alone like knowing you’re an insignificant speck of dust in the universe.

But it’s okay, P comforts himself, he has always been a bit of a loner anyway.

“Hey,” Dee alerts P of his presence in a soft whisper, appearing at the top of the stairs. P has never seen Dee out of his suit before - he’s wearing a plain T-shirt and ripped black jeans. Dee looks extra unthreatening like this, P notes in his head.

P smiles meekly in return, waving at Dee and rejoicing inside when Dee decides to join him. P wanted to hang out with Dee, he’s glad he has company - and yet, the presence of Dee makes him nervous. He never knows where he stands with Dee’s mood swings. 

It seems that Dee is in a good mood tonight though, with a homemade Martini in hand and motioning to offer P a sip. P shakes his head amicably. 

“Would’ve been better if you brought Malibu,” P jokes, and Dee makes a face.

“What are you, twelve?” P shoves him in return. 

They look out from the roof garden in peaceful silence for a while, before P returns to his telescope to try and spot something in the dark night sky. Dee watches curiously.

“What are you looking at?” Dee asks, almost half amused. P’s childlike wonder is endearing for Dee, who’s younger than him but so unfazed and unimpressed by the world. Dee doesn’t think anyone in MiB still has that easily excitable spark like P does, who is still so in love with the universe after seeing all its ugliness.

“Come look, this constellation looks like a corgi chasing a ball!” P says in genuine excitement, and Dee can’t help but snort out loud. He shuffles over to the telescope as per P’s instruction, just to entertain him. He looks into the telescope, and sees nothing out of the ordinary beyond Leo and a part of Cancer, amongst other unrecognisable stars.

“Mate, I thought you studied bloody  _ Astrology _ …” Dee shakes his head, despite chuckling in fondness. P sticks his tongue out at him. 

“It’s  **Astronomy** ,  _ mate _ . Let me have my fun!” P shoves Dee out of the way, and goes back to marvelling at the stars. “Man, don’t you feel so small and lonely looking at the universe?”

Dee barks out a sharp laugh.

“All the time, mate!” Dee’s usual bitterness has returned, but at least there’s still some mirth in his voice. P sobers up slightly, looking back at Dee with an arched brow.

“Do you regret it?” P asks seriously, and Dee, for all the bitterness in his heart, wants to comfort P. He shakes his head gently, before gulping another sip of his drink to hide the vulnerability.

“Nah, I’ve always been small and lonely anyway.” P looks sad for a minuscule moment, before breaking out into a silly grin. 

“Same!” He almost reaches out for a sarcastic high five, but he doesn’t think Dee would appreciate his banter.

“We’re doing good though, right?” P asks hopefully, and Dee simply can’t find it in his heart to let him down.

“Yeah. We’re doing good. And, the stars are beautiful.” 

Dee spends the rest of the night sitting idly on the terrace whilst P studies the stars quietly. Their next shift doesn’t start till 8pm the next day anyway, and P has learnt that Dee has an erratic sleeping pattern just like him. He wonders if Dee’s head is full of thoughts like his too, even after settling into this job.

“You know, you’re not like what I expected,” P comments offhandedly after hours of silence, when the sun starts to rise and there’s no more stars to see. Dee quirks an eyebrow in alarm.

“Yeah? And what did you expect?” Dee asks, almost as a challenge. P shrugs.

“I dunno, a super cool agent who shoots people in cold blood or something.”

“Are you insinuating that I’m  _ not _ a super cool agent?  _ Bowie save me _ ! My reputation!” Dee fake gasps, putting a hand to his chest. P laughs and refuses to save his vanity. 

“What am I instead then,” Dee asks, because he’s intrigued, if not slightly hurt by how P isn’t fazed by his usual reputation at MiB. 

“ _ Nice _ ,” P answers genuinely, and Dee’s heart skips a beat. 

He hates humans. P is bloody awful for looking at Dee with stars in his eyes like that. He should never have taken on a partner. P’s big and gentle heart feels like a dangerous trap.

“...Now where did you get that idea from,” Dee mutters, staring at his feet and refusing to look at P.

P’s laugh sparkles like the stars.

“Don’t worry, agent D. I’ll keep your secret and your reputation safe.”

P is terrible at winking, but Dee still feels awfully embarrassed all the same.

“Norman. You gotta talk some sense into this guy,” P whines as Dee storms into the break room, throwing his suit jacket off in a fury.

“N, how about you tell the rookie that losing a lead on bank robbers is not acceptable? You know what, I think we should zap him and throw him out,” Dee hisses through his teeth, pointedly ignoring P’s presence.

“Hey! I’m not your stupid messenger,” Norman blows bubbles at them both.

P won’t deny that he wasn’t at his best today. There was a robbery at the Charing Cross Intergalactic Bank, and a lot of assets were stolen. 

(Dee wishes it was just money - he thinks a few royal heirlooms are involved too. Dee hasn’t had galactic royalty threatening humanity for almost eight months now - it was good whilst it lasted.)

The bank is one of the larger branches on Earth - where all sorts of beings keep their money, exchange foreign currency into something useful on Earth and such. Obviously, they couldn’t exactly call 999 on the robbers, since they’re an extraterrestrial establishment in catacombs under most of Chinatown, so it was under the MiB’s scope to keep aliens in London safe.

By the time the MiB arrived, it was almost too late, but what really hit the nail in the coffin was P failing to simply take note of which direction the convicts disappeared in, because Dee was too busy doing damage control and trying to soothe panicked alien victims who were at risk of exposing themselves to humans.

On the way back Dee has already thrown all sorts of verbal abuse towards P - understandably so, but in P’s defence the case isn’t entirely lost. In fact, he at least remembered what species the convicts were and how many were there. P’s quick thinking deduced that it would probably be difficult for all that money and intergalactic currency to leave London without catching attention. So basically, P has a plan. He didn’t just botch a counter robbery. 

Dee started ignoring P once they were back at HQ, which was even worse than Dee yelling at P - P hates the silence. The guilt is unbearable, and his usual need to impress agent Dee just grows and weighs him down even further. P feels like an utter failure - he wishes that Dee would just talk to him, go back to taking out his justified anger at P, at least. This silent treatment is so counter productive and killing P inside.

So here they are, standing in the break room. P glaring at Dee, Dee glaring at his coffee mug, Norman glaring at them both.

“Dee, I’m sorry about screwing up, really. But why do you have to be so mean?” P asks, almost tiredly. 

Dee continues to ignore him. P sighs loudly at Norman, shaking his head.

“I can tell you why Dee is so antisocial and emotionally constipated. It’s because he’s, what do you frivolous humans call it?  _ Gay _ . It makes him all self important with a warped sense of humanity. Personally I don’t understand all the human fuss about it, in fact gender is just -”

“-Mate what the fuck!” Dee growls in fury, slamming at Norman’s tank so hard that the water ripples. Norman is stunned into silence, slowly catching on that maybe it wasn’t knowledge that should be shared, seeing how prickly Dee is acting right now. The fish freezes in his tank, save for his tail swishing nervously behind him.

P is shocked, his grudge with Dee promptly forgotten.

P never expected to hear about Dee’s sexuality or dating life, not that it would have mattered to him anyway. But, evidently, it means a great deal to Dee. P probably shouldn’t have heard that, seeing how Dee is reacting right now, fuming and embarrassed. Dee is probably internally debating between running away or killing Norman and P both. 

In the end Dee opts for dashing out of the break room, cheeks red and blotchy. He’s so mad at Norman he could pour him down the drain, but Dee feels too exposed to even acknowledge P, so he doesn’t even flinch at P pleading for Dee to stay as he storms away. P watches his retreating figure helplessly. 

“Ugh, I liked the old Dee so much better. The other agent D was so much less fussy with this sort of stuff,” Norman grumbles, hardly guilty. 

“What, David?” P distractedly replies, his thoughts still miles and lightyears away, watching the slammed door forlornly. 

“Yep, that was one of his names. Anyway,  _ our _ Dee is so much pissier. I wish he could just get his head out of his arse sometimes.”

“Norman? I think you really shouldn’t have outed Dee in front of me. That is, uh, not socially acceptable here. You probably should apologise the next time you see Dee, before he pours you down the loo,” P says slowly, trying to be not too patronising to an alien talking fish. Norman shows the most minuscule equivalent of a nod in understanding, but is mostly still stubbornly scoffing.

“P, you’re too nice on him,” Norman swishes in his tank sassily as P begins to leave.

“And you’re being unfair to Dee. Anyway, think about what I said. I’ve got to go fix this mess between me and my dearest mentor now, before he gets my arse fired, so bye.”

Dee avoids P like the plague. He immediately dashes away with a shitty excuse every time he spots P heading towards the general direction of his desk, and locks himself in his apartment otherwise. Dee seems hardly mad at P for losing the robbers anymore, he’s too deep into his insecurity to confront P right now.

This is why Dee didn’t want to work with another human. Not just because someone might get in the way, but that eventually his whole gay crisis that has been looming over him since he can remember will catch up, and then everything goes to shit again. Either his sexuality undermines everything else that he has achieved, or, even if people were fine with it, they act all weird and polite and make Dee self conscious and he just hates how sexuality is such a big deal with humans. 

He can’t shake all the things he hates about humanity, no matter how far removed from society he has become. Being gay and getting along with other humans just can’t coexist, as it was clearly exhibited in Dee’s ordinary life, before the life he knows now. Either Dee gets hurt by the people around him, or by his own overbearing thoughts, or even worse, he gets emotionally attached to people (read: straight boys) that he really shouldn’t even get close to in the first place. He let his guard down for once, and P has just started to become part of his life only to reject him now that he knows, it just proves again and again that Dee doesn’t deserve anything nice. 

At least Dee hadn’t got far along enough to worry about developing feelings for P, he thinks bitterly. Dee has denied himself so much and so readily that the thought wasn’t even on the table. He was just glad to find a friend in P. And now he can’t even have that, because Norman’s blabber mouth had to go and ruin everything. 

Dee is going to brew in his self pity until he gathers the harshness to find some excuse to fire P, or at least demote him. Just so Dee can run away from his terrifying confrontation.

If Dee has learnt anything about P since their first encounter, way before P’s recruitment, is that this man is relentless when he wants to be. 

P has been ringing his doorbell for five minutes straight now, not even an hour after their shift ended and Dee escaped P by taking a cab home. Eventually Dee has to answer the door, because it’s 2 in the morning and he really doesn’t want to incite a loud and slimy tantrum from their landlady. 

P’s eyes are wide with frenzy when Dee finally locks eyes with him.

“Dee, we need to talk,” he says, determined, panting as if he’s run a marathon even though all he did was run up a few flights of steps (the lift didn’t come fast enough) to reach Dee’s apartment.

Dee blinks. P is peering behind him, taking in a glimpse of Dee’s living room with its sleek and depressingly monochrome furniture. Dee is not going to let P into his home. It feels like too much violation in one day. But if P wants to talk, Dee would just have to go through with it, knowing P’s track record of being unwaveringly annoying. Dee needs a neutral ground to find his footing - he is not going to have a heart to heart with P in his living room.

“Ugh. Okay, sure. Let’s go talk upstairs. Stop making a scene.” 

Dee slams the door in P’s face then, leaving P horribly confused, but just emerges a split second later with a black fluffy coat on. P himself hadn’t even bothered to change out of his work suit before he dashed after Dee.

“What? It’s windy,” Dee argues defensively even though P hadn’t said anything. P only arches his eyebrows at Dee drowning in that big fluffy thing. Dee just looks like a tiny dog yapping and trying to be angry. P isn’t scared of Dee yelling at him. He is going to sort this out, with pure stubbornness. Dee can’t ignore him forever.

The roof terrace is indeed windy in the dead of the night, even though it's still summer, but P isn’t going to admit that he’s cold and slightly uncomfortable. He won’t let Dee back away from the conversation.

“So, I wanted to apologise. I’m sorry that I learnt personal stuff about you against your will. Oh, and I’m sorry about losing the robbers, too. I have a solid idea about where they’re headed next though, if that helps.” P chases after Dee’s quick steps to the edge of the terrace, trying to catch his eye. Dee just looks away and over the lights of central London.

“Screw the robbery, P, I don’t care anymore,” Dee says dismissively, looking away into the distance.

“Well, for what it’s worth, it doesn’t matter to me if you’re gay or not. Like, Norman says a lot of bullshit, and I’m sure he probably could be wrong, but if that’s what you’re worried about, just know that I, uh, it’s not an issue to me. I literally don’t care. But, uh, not that you needed my approval anyway, but, yeah. If that’s what you’re worried about -”

“I’m _ not _ obsessing over being gay! I know it’s not a big deal -” Dee argues defensively, but recoils when he thinks about his track record of being reclusive. His unhappy past life with his parents. His non existent human friends before he took on this job. Maybe it  _ is _ a big deal to him - but P and Norman are making it sound like he’s a repressed uptight, unapproachable person (which he really is to be honest), so Dee is adamant to prove himself. At least P doesn’t actually directly attack his whole Gay thing, addressing the fact that _ Dee likes boys and P is a boy and usually this is where it all goes downhill  _ \- Dee doesn’t even want to go there. For now, weirdly, he wants to prove to P that he’s not a total prick who just likes to throw tantrums, even though he has been the one to shut P out randomly every now and then. 

It’s P’s stupidly clear blue eyes. They trap you and make you want to comply with all his ridiculous wishes.

“Sure, you’re not getting worked up over this,” P’s voice is dripping with sarcasm. “Dee, I’m sure you have your reasons and are maybe struggling with personal stuff, but you can’t just close yourself off forever on the off chance that everyone is a major douchebag and out to get you for being gay. You’re safe as a Man in Black now. In fact, I’ll make sure of it,” he pats his chest assuringly, as if he’s not a rookie Man in Black who isn’t even allowed to keep his own blaster. “It really isn’t a big deal. The universe is so big, see, if you just think about the other species, human concepts of gender don’t exist to them. So, basically, all the aliens are actually gay. Gay aliens.  _ Gayliens _ . Heh.” 

P slowly realises that he's running his mouth, but he can’t stop because he’s an idiot like that. He faintly recognises that it’s probably not in his place to say all this to Dee, a gay man, but P genuinely believes in what he’s saying. 

He’s never really thought about sexuality before, his own or others, but as he rambles on, he comes to the easy conclusion that he really doesn’t care. His eyes have been opened so much ever since meeting all sorts of interesting people and species on the job, and he has been loving every bit of it. He has no reason to limit himself or his view on others. Dee being attracted to men is literally the least outlandish fact that P has learnt on the job, he is almost baffled by the fact that people would actually be shocked or disturbed by it. It’s an interesting fact, for sure, and quenches some of P’s curiosity and nosiness about Dee, the closest person he has as a friend ever since leaving the normal world behind, but otherwise, P isn’t going to use it as leverage or run his mouth around the agency or anything. He just wants Dee to feel comfortable with him. He thought they were almost becoming begrudging friends.

“Of course it doesn’t matter to you, you and your damned alien kink,” Dee chuckles bitterly, desperately to keep the banter light between them and not getting worked up like P accused him of. Dee doesn’t like talking about his feelings, especially about his unresolved sexuality crisis. (He doesn’t have a crisis about being gay, he’s long over that, but it’s just - the crisis lies within all the other cruel humans.) 

“Hey! Stop diverting! And for the hundredth time, I do  _ not _ have an alien kink,” P whines and Dee can’t help but snort out a little laugh. P is so easy to rile up.

“I just - I know you and Norman think that I’m being overdramatic and unnecessarily antisocial. But - just leave this be. Like, no offence, but you don’t know what it’s like to be rejected by your religious family. And getting bullied for the entirety of your time at school. I know I have a lot of issues to go through, eventually - but yeah. Let me be weird and grumpy or whatever.”

Dee tries to sound not too hung up about his past, but the words still choke up his throat. He doesn’t mind admitting that he has a lot of resentment for most of the people in his life pre-MiB. Dee might have trust issues, but they aren’t unwarranted. He might not have exactly been bullied in school  _ because  _ he was  _ being _ gay, Bowie save him, but Gay was always a thing that got brought up and well, Dee could never deny it. The fact that he likes boys has been a source of pain in so many situations that once he accepted the fact that he’ll never be straight, Dee just had to distance himself from people to protect himself. There was no other way. 

Yes, Dee recognises the full irony of his predecessor being notoriously freely bisexual. But alas, he is no David Bowie. He was just plain old Dan from Reading, and now he’s just the moody and reclusive agent Dee. 

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. But, for what it’s worth, I just want you to know that I’ll never see you differently because of that. In fact, I support you. 100 percent.” 

P is grinning way too enthusiastically that Dee can’t help but be suspicious.

“Wait. Are  _ you _ gay?” Dee asks bluntly, throwing P off. P stammers, brain genuinely blank of an answer.

“Uh, I don’t know?” P is being truthful. It wouldn’t bother him if he was, but he really hadn’t thought of dating and such so far. There was just never any interest, in girls or otherwise, and he was too invested in being a nerd to notice that was another aspect of him being odd. He just genuinely never thought about his sexuality, or even romance, until now. And obviously, this job and being excluded from human society doesn’t really set up many opportunities for P to figure out what he likes or who he is.

Dee sighs loudly, snorting unattractively through his nose.

“Yeah, of course you don’t, what did I expect.”

P feels slightly offended by that. He’s older than Dee, after all, and whilst Dee is his senior in the field of being an intergalactic agent, P is sick of Dee treating him like a child. Not that there is an issue with him not being in touch with his sexuality, but somehow P wants to prove himself to Dee. As what exactly? He doesn’t know yet.

“Hey! I know that I’m not attracted to aliens, that’s for sure,” P whines, and Dee cracks into real laughter.

“Right… of course…”

“I mean, unless H is an alien. Then maybe we can talk about my so-called alien kink,” P winks terribly, willing to make fun of himself as long as Dee is entertained and not shutting him out again.

“You think H is hot? Bleh,” Dee motions to gag, but file that knowledge for later. P probably is straight, but it’s a nice change to speak with someone else who is actually genuinely clueless about the sad constructs of human society. 

P might have been an odd one before he became a Man in Black, but Dee thinks he’s out of this world.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing.


	4. the planets bend between us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! CONTENT NOTE: blood/injury/ vague violence !!!

“Put your foot on the gas,  _ for Bowie’s sake _ !” P screeches, and if Dee had the heart to, he would be thrilled at the fact that P is picking up on his mannerisms. But instead, Dee is currently too busy weaving through Bethnal Green in his Aston (somehow it’s _ his _ car now, with how often he’s allowed it), closely following the Land Rover a few cars ahead.

They caught the Charing Cross robbers. Barely. Dee and P have been spending sleepless nights busting popular alien hideouts, and, in hand with P’s obsessive infiltration of the black market for outer space rare gems and jewellery, it wasn’t hard to trace some of the stolen items eventually. 

One mission leads to the other, and next thing they know, they find a warehouse with a truck worth of currency (British Pound or otherwise), and now Dee and P are on a high speed chase between two obviously altered Earthly vehicles.

Dee is driving, obviously, whilst P is finally granted (temporarily) a massive neurolysing flashlight in the passenger seat, furiously trying to erase every Londoner’s trauma from witnessing supersonic vintage cars and robbers with several pairs of arms.

Thank Bowie Dee finally lets him be useful for once, and puts P in charge of damage control. True to P’s demand, Dee is speeding behind the fugitives with absolutely no remorse, swerving and almost crashing into passing cars in the process. P is slightly worried, but he optimistically trusts that the Aston probably has some clever mechanism in place to protect them.

Then massive guns start getting involved in the chase, and P seriously wonders why he is never allowed to have anything like that. As P ducks before a laser beam can fry him into ashes, he barely remembers to continue brainwashing the shocked witnesses into oblivion. At least the convicts don’t bother to waste shots on civilians, or use humans as hostages - it’s an intergalactic crime. Agent P though, is less than fortunate, and a live shooting target right now.

“I really! Should’ve! Earn my blaster by now!” P all but screams. 

Dee swerves in aid of dodging bullets, and curses as one flies past the top of his curls, punching a hole through the windscreen in the process. P curls up for a split second and yelps.

“Where the fuck is back up?!” Dee yells in frustration, reminding P that it is indeed not just the two of them against the universe. He still feels pretty helpless with a Neurolyser and no weapon though. Maybe if he wipes the memories of the ones shooting at him he might stand a chance. 

P only starts to believe that he might make it out of this alive (catching their fugitives seems too much to wish for right now) when Dee’s left hand leaves the stick to reach for his hidden blaster. P didn’t know it was possible to shoot perfectly from several yards away with another hand on the wheel, but Dee looks effortlessly cool doing it. He hardly blinks before shooting right through the windscreen himself, incapacitating two of the snipers with precision.

P comes back to his senses, and kicks out a leg to shatter their entire windscreen in resolution after both sides have put enough bullets through the glass to cover it in cracks. Dee chuckles breathlessly as he aims another round at the Land Rover with the newfound clarity, and P takes it as the most gratitude he’s going to get at the moment. 

Dee speeds up and the capture seems feasibly close. He can see the more equipped and weaponised MiB vans rounding up the fugitives from around the corner now, they are so close to capturing them. Dee grunts and makes a weird noise, half in frustration and half in almost satisfied victory. It’s over for the robbers.

And then Dee sees it before he hears it. A blaster shot flying past his left and right into P’s shoulder. P slumps in his seat immediately, yelping out in pain. Dee’s adrenaline pumping heart suddenly goes cold. 

Coincidentally the multiple MiB vehicles have backed the Land Rover into a dead end, and Dee is unable to break in time, crashing the Aston right into the rear of it. 

Before Dee can finish a coherent thought, he jumps out of his seat through the broken windscreen and right in between two of the fugitives at the back of the truck, shooting point blank at each and every blaster-wielding arm in his sight. Dee has never taken a life before despite his title of best shot, but in his current fury, he’s close to considering it. They fucking shot P, how dare they.

All is fair and true under intergalactic law, and Dee would’ve been fairly fired if he killed in self defence, but it doesn’t stop him from getting a few punches in, dislocating several elbows until more weaponised agents are in the vicinity of the convicts, rounding up and restraining them. (And mostly to keep them safe from a feral agent D.)

Dee only breaks out of his red hot frenzy when he remembers that P is still currently bleeding in his passenger seat. He struggles out of an agent’s grab (keeping him away from abusing the convicts), and dashes back to the thoroughly trashed Aston. No one has bothered to check on agent P yet, and Dee wants to scream - he doesn’t give a fuck about stolen royal artefacts right now.

The bullet is still nestled in P’s shoulder, and the bleeding is bad. Half of P’s sleeve is already soaked darker than its usual ashy black, and the red slowly travels across the white of his shirt, reaching the middle of P’s chest. P is blinking at him slowly, his blue eyes far away and glassy. Dee feels more panicked now than when laser beams were grazing the top of his own head.

“MEDIC! SOMEONE GET ME A BLOODY MEDIC NOW, FUCK!” Dee croaks, only realising then that he had started tearing up. 

P is still mostly conscious and shaking his head ever so slightly at Dee’s overreaction, and Dee has a strange surreal urge to yell at his dumb rookie partner as usual. He pushes a palm firmly at P’s wound, trying to ease the bleeding, but P winces.

Deep down Dee rationally knows that P’s life is not in probable danger. Dee himself has seen much worse before, and MiB agents have alien medical tech on their side, and yet, seeing P hurt, he cannot think straight. He just cannot shake the  _ what if _ in his head. 

“Hey Dee? Stop freaking out,” P chuckles breathlessly, shifting his bleeding shoulder slightly and hoping to ease Dee’s grip. He has never suffered an injury close to this before, he’s in so much pain that rationality is beginning to escape him. 

(Dee doesn’t let up, he knows what’s best for a gunshot. He scrunches his eyes shut momentarily at P’s involuntary whimpers, desperate to shut them out.)

Dee looks like he’s about to cry for real, and P knows he’s feeling guilty about not letting him have a weapon. P doesn’t blame Dee though. 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay… By the way, I don’t regret this,” P says, cryptically, and Dee cries harder, refusing to hear P talking like he’s speaking his last words. It’s ridiculous, P is the one bleeding out, he shouldn’t be trying to comfort Dee. Dee just screams for a medic once again, shaking his head furiously at P without much explanation.

_ No. Don’t die. _

_ You should regret this. _

_ I should never have gotten you into this. _

_ Stop trying to make me feel better. Save your breath. _

_ Don’t leave me. _

“Dee! Stop crying, okay? Even if I die -” Dee indeed does stop crying to glare at P sternly, because P is not going to die on him - “it’s okay. I’ve already got more days than I bargained for.”

“What?” Dee blurts out in hysteria, chuckling bitterly at P’s hysterical babble. P deserves to live.

“Hah. You know me, always getting into life or death situations. But for real though, have I told you how I got into this? The whole alien thing?” 

Dee slowly catches on that P is being chatty to desperately cling onto consciousness and fending off the impending panic of never waking up once he lets his eyes fall close, so he indulges in P’s nonsense, nodding along dumbly. P, ever the endearing idiot, dares to grin weakly at him whilst bleeding out.

“I was such an idiot when I was younger. This one time, when I was still an undergrad, I was waiting for the night tube, right, and then as usual I’m looking at the sky. There was a shooting star and I was so surprised I fell right down into the tracks.”

P giggles stupidly at the memory, and Dee holds back from another bitter, hysterical laugh. He can’t believe that P is telling him a story right now, a ridiculous one at that.

“There was absolutely no one else on the platform. I could see the train coming, I was totally going to get run over. But out of nowhere, this guy leaps in and pulls me back out effortlessly, Oh my God. I think he must have done some psychic stuff on me afterwards, because I can’t remember what he looked like, but he breathed through his eyes. And he also smiled at me with four rows of teeth. 

“Anyway, I owe my life to the universe and everyone else out there. Seems fitting that the universe gets me back, right.”

“Haz?” Dee blurts out in shock, and P momentarily forgets about the pain out of pure confusion.

“It was Haz! Hazriq. He’s left London now, he’s the first non human friend I made. I was there. It was the end of my shift in my first week. We saw this guy falling off the platform, and I got Haz to grab the guy, and we hauled him up the tracks... And then I zapped you -” Dee screws his eyebrows up “- weren’t you ginger?”

“I can’t believe I can’t even die with my secret -” P coughs out a feeble laugh, and Dee wants to argue “- and Jesus, agent D, you’re historically terrible at neurolysing.” 

The medics finally come to pry P out of Dee’s hands, thank Bowie, but Dee doesn’t stop fussing over P, chasing after the stretcher and into one of the MiB vans, gripping onto P’s good elbow all the while. P is going to be okay. He has to be. But Dee still feels like he can’t breathe, not until he can’t see red on P’s chest anymore.

“Oh wow, Dee,  _ you _ saved my life,” P says dreamily in the van on the way to the operating table in HQ. Dee squeezes his good arm in reassurance, scoffing mentally at P’s dramatic declaration. Technically it wasn’t Dee who actually saved him. P does like to romanticise and see the best in the people around him, especially Dee, who really doesn’t deserve it. 

“Yeah, I guess. And I’ll keep doing it, again and again. You’re not dying on me anytime soon, you stupid arse,” Dee replies sternly, although P has already passed out.

Kay catches Dee outside the medical bay, in the corridor with the large glazed screens looking into the operating theatres. It’s a stark contrast between several robotic arms hovering over P’s limp body and patching up the hole in his chest, and a hoard of detained convicts with variating states of dislocated elbows and shoulders in the room next door. 

Dee usually jumps straight into paperwork right after a mission, but this time round he has been sloppy and fractured an ankle whilst jumping out of his trashed Aston and clambering onto the convicts’ truck, which only started to hurt after he saw P into relative stability. 

Kay is one of the regular clean up team members, and she does not look impressed by Dee at all. If Dee wasn’t slumped in a plastic chair across the corridor, with a fractured ankle (the freaky Plutonian remedy is fast healing but not that fast) and his eyes glued to P desperately being pulled back together by the seams, he would’ve run away. Dee is hardly amicable to any of his coworkers, but Kay is terrifying when she wants to be. 

“A little less abuse would have sufficed,” she remarks with a sneer, jerking her chin at the aftermath of all the unnecessary injuries Dee has imposed on the convicts. And Dee wasn’t even the one to make the arrest - he literally just took his fury out on them for no justifiable reason. He isn’t particularly proud of it. He stays quiet, eyes staring straight ahead at P’s operating table. Dee isn’t exactly full of remorse either, seeing how those bandit bastards put his partner there.

“You’re lucky that you’ll probably get away with it, with how the Arquilians are giving you  _ another _ medal for restoring the crown jewels, and already making a big fuss around the galaxy,” this is news to Dee, but nothing could lift his spirits right now. “ I didn’t even know that hand-to-hand combat was your thing.”

Dee didn’t know he had it in him either, until he saw the the life in P slowly slipping away in the corner of his eye, by the hands of stupid robbers with big guns. He would happily break a dozen more MiB protocols before he lets anyone steal P’s light, the one that sparkles in his blue eyes and compliments his silly giggles. P is so alive that he shines bright enough for the two of them, despite Dee’s depressing soul.

He’s the best thing that’s happened to Dee for a while. 

“-really care about your rookie partner, huh,” Dee just about catches Kay’s curious observation, breaking out of his intense reverie. 

They’ve stitched up P’s skin now, he’ll wake up from the anaesthetic in an hour or so and everything will be fine. Well, P would have to be out of action for at least a week, but it’s good timing for Dee to be alone and wallow in self-imposed guilt. P is alright, Dee reassures himself, but his heart feels shaken and his chest feels wrung out of oxygen still.

He really does care about P. So much that it scares Dee himself. 

An hour later, when Kay has given up on lecturing Dee about codes of conduct and persuading him to leave, Dee is still permanently glued to the chair outside the medical bay, only leaving once to retrieve his laptop and start his mission report. Dee knows he’s being dramatic, but P hasn’t woken up yet and Dee will be hung, drawn and quartered before he leaves P’s side. 

Dee vaguely registers that people are noticing. At the very least, he can sense Elle shooting curious glances at him from her desk every once in a while, no doubt by the doings of Kay’s chattering next to her. Dee has never outwardly shown any human compassion towards anyone in the force before, they’re justifiably alarmed. 

Dee thinks most people suspect he’s  _ something _ anyway, even if his gayness isn’t exactly common knowledge.  _ Not straight _ , that is pretty much clear with his disinterest. He knows that Elle is brewing theories about his uncharacteristic concern over P just from the all knowing glint in her eye. 

Some MiB agents date each other. It’s officially frowned upon, but it’s technically not forbidden. It’s the most logical solution for the ultimate conflict between the MiB curse of society exclusion and the human weakness of craving emotional connection. In fact, Kay and Elle are one of the more high profile couples in the force, and everyone just accepted it without much fuss. Dee refuses to admit that he’s remotely attached to P in that way though. He’s just having a moment of weakness, mostly fuelled by inexperience in teamwork and the immense guilt. 

As per Dee’s mantra, human connection is dangerous. P has only taken a single bullet in his shoulder today, but Dee can imagine all the new vulnerabilities he has exposed to the universe now, with P being a liability. It’s just unprofessional and inefficient.

(He’s definitely just worried about his work. Not the fact that what Kay and Elle are insinuating could be true. Dee isn’t scared of falling for friends, should he have any, because Dee never lets himself fall in love. Definitely not.)

P finally blinks his way back to reality two hours after, and Dee dashes in to be by his bedside immediately, his own ankle already having healed. Dee hovers over P like a maddening mother hen, and P breaks out into a tired grin at the comforting sight of a familiar face, the sparkle returning to his eyes.

“Dee! I’m alive,” P chuckles, reaching out with his good arm to clutch Dee’s panicked hand wavering over P’s personal space. 

Dee should be relieved that P is indeed, well and alive, but the suffocating ache in his chest returns once P’s thumb brushes at his palm. His hold is gentle but firm, warm and full of life. Dee’s hand is shaking instead. He can’t breathe. P smiles at him, all the way to his eyes, and Dee is hit with an overwhelming urge to cry.

_ Fuck. _

P understandably gets sent home on sick leave for two weeks. After half a shift of shaking and stressing out at his desk, unable to focus, Dee decides to take several days off himself too. Dee isn’t usually one to be emotionally exhausted after a taxing mission, but H just waves him off without much fuss, deeming the mission reports sufficient. 

“Yes, I understand. It’s hard to go back to being alone after getting accustomed to working with a partner right? Send my regards to agent P, poor thing.”

Dee would be doing nothing of the sort. He’s worried as hell about P, but he fully intends to lock himself inside his apartment, wallowing in homosexual pining and maybe also crying a lot. 

Dee is being dramatic. He ends up mostly spending his days off eating takeaway and cycling through his collection of tragic gay films (he’s stuck between Moonlight and the good old Brokeback Mountain at the moment), and pestering the landlady to check up on P because Dee is stubborn and refuses to see P at all costs. The lengths that Dee can go to avoid any human emotion.

A crush is like an addiction. Dee is determined that he can stave off any inkling of feelings for P if he just tries hard enough to forget about his existence. (Until they get back on duty, that is. Dee’s self destructive feelings are disastrous, but not as disastrous as leaving agent P alone on missions.) 

Elle calls him on his work mobile when Dee is on his third rerun of Call Me by Your Name, on the verge of tears even though he doesn’t even like the film that much (that’s what he tells himself anyway). He picks up with a groan, annoyed that his immersion in Timothee Chalamet has been interrupted.

“If it’s not an emergency and you don’t absolutely need back up I’m hanging up right away,” Dee declares rudely before Elle can say anything. She snorts through her nose.

“It  _ is _ an emergency. How’s P doing?” Elle asks sweetly, and Dee is tempted to hang up immediately.

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen him since you did,” Dee deadpans, ignoring Kay’s snickers in the background of the phone call. They really are the worst. Double the trouble. Definitely the prime example of why MiB agents shouldn’t date each other.

“Dee! He’s your partner!” Elle chastises, obviously insinuating much more. Elle’s _partner_ (of every sense of the word) yells in the background. 

“I would really check on him if I were you. I was looking at P’s physio reports the other day and,” Kay pauses for a dramatic sigh that Dee hears clearly despite her distance from Elle’s phone “- they don’t look pretty Dee. That’s all I’m saying.”

Dee hangs up soon after more of Elle’s interrogation, slumping into his sofa. Armie Hammer and Timothee are passionately making out on the screen but Dee is hardly in the mood anymore. He knows that Kay is probably just bluffing. P’s arm is probably good as new and he could be practicing his shots in his living room with his plushies right now. Dee will just seem like an overbearing idiot if he rushes downstairs to visit P.

Dee doesn’t care that much. P is alive, what else does he have to worry about.

In the end Dee jumps out of his sofa with a loud scoff at himself and dashes downstairs in his dressing gown. He’s pathetic like that.

P answers the door with a dazzling grin and droplets of blood appearing in his bare right shoulder, dressed in an unzipped hoodie with nothing underneath. Dee immediately shifts into frenzy mode.

“What in the _ever loving fuck of Bowie_ are you doing?” Dee’s eyes are wide as saucers as he grabs P by the shoulders and walks them both into the apartment, sitting P down onto the nearest chair. Dee is genuinely fearing for P’s life again, but all P does is chuckling nervously. 

“Uh, I’m supposed to take the stitches out today? I think?” P shrugs, gesturing helplessly at the first aid kit and abandoned tweezers on the coffee table before him. Dee shakes his head in disdain - P is right handed and any possible scenario just seems wrong. Dee knows that their medics are stretched thin lately, and most MiB agents eventually learn to perform basic first aid on themselves, but P being left to fend for himself just doesn’t sit right with him.

“Why didn’t you get someone else to do it?” Dee tsks, and P can’t help but mutter under his breath. “Well no one offered…”

Dee blushes in guilt, avoiding eye contact. It clearly was a terrible idea to leave P alone. He stares ahead at P’s shoulder instead, at where P has made a messy attempt to unpick the stitches. Dee sits himself down next to P on the sofa in determination.

“Sit still, I’ll do it.” Dee declares sternly, gently but firmly holding onto P’s right arm. P complies obediently, trying not to squirm as Dee approaches his skin with the tweezers.

P holds his breath as he glances downwards to watch Dee’s steady hand pull out the thread and snip each stitch with another with a practised precision. It doesn’t even feel like anything - P wonders how often Dee has done this before, has he always had to do it by himself. He distractedly makes a mental note to take up more first aid skills so he could tend to Dee in return in the future. 

P’s healed skin is good as new, the stitches leaving no more than little pinpricks on the shiny scar tissue. He watches in awe, rolling his shoulders slightly as if pulling out the stitches would’ve made a massive difference to his recovery. P has blocked out the memory of being shot out of pure shock - he has mostly been marvelling alien medical remedies in lieu of emotionally processing his first major injury. P did have a go at an ad hoc shooting practice with his nerf gun though, and is relieved that not all his motor skills are lost entirely. So he’s feeling fine. Really.

Dee is deeply trapped in a single minded concentration of unpicking P’s stitches, staring at the scar on P’s shoulder until he’s done and suddenly realising that he’s sitting less than a foot away from his shirtless partner. 

(Basically shirtless. He has an unzipped hoodie falling off his shoulders. It shouldn’t be hot, but Dee’s flight or fight is triggered by unending pale skin and emoji pyjamas bottoms, no less. Dee blames it on Call Me By Your Name. Everything is erotic.)

Dee is fixating on the field of freckles in the middle of P’s chest. (He’s not exactly ripped, but being a Man in Black is a demanding workout.) Dee can’t look away - it hurts not to look at him. But it hurts to look too. Dee’s heart is pounding in his chest again, all that repressed adrenaline finally finding an outlet. 

P rolls his shoulder and Dee snaps out of his reverie, jumping like a deer caught in headlights. He looks up hastily to find the wide blue eyes of his dreams (his nightmares) already staring back at him. Dee gapes stupidly, his throat going dry. How very unsmooth. P totally saw him ogling. 

“Hey,” P chuckles softly, startled by the sudden eye contact. Dee is staring at him very intensely, and although it was much more intimate a moment ago when Dee was pulling threads out of his skin, somehow P feels more nervous now. Dee has always been unpredictable. P can’t help but wonder if Dee has a lecture in store for him for getting injured in a mission or not taking care of himself properly. P is always nervous around Dee, that’s just how they are.

Dee takes a glance over the expanse of P’s chest, and P can’t help but blush furiously. Dee isn’t  _ looking _ . He’s probably just checking P over for any other injuries because Dee is thoughtful like that. But P burns under his gaze, itching to squirm away from the attention. P is almost used to being invisible to the untrained eye now, the attention is overwhelming and definitely undeserved. P feels bad for having been a burden for the prodigy agent Dee, he knows Dee isn’t used to taking on such responsibility. He must have thrown Dee off pretty badly if he’s so worked up and worried, unlike his usual self. 

“Dee? Thank you,” P is whispering. He doesn’t know why he’s keeping his voice down, but the atmosphere just feels too fragile for anything else. Dee still hasn’t said a single word. His eyes snap back up to P’s face, and P is frozen under the scrutiny again. Dee looks troubled, eyes steady and unwavering with a slight frown. P has seen this expression before - Dee looks like he’s about to go into battle. P has never been at the receiving end before - it makes his heart pound. 

Out of nowhere, Dee seems to come to his senses and makes a quick excuse to leave. He practically bolts for the door after weakly replying to P’s gratitude. P has no idea what’s going on, but he’s glad that Dee’s intense stoicism is finally gone and not suffocating P in his own living room anymore. And yet, P feels slightly disappointed for being left alone again. The mission has left P rather emotionally vulnerable.

Dee catches his own gaze lingering at the edge of P’s lips, over the arch of his cupid’s bow. He had to run. Leaving his apartment was a terrible idea. Dee is locking himself up forever, P doesn’t deserve to have Dee around him. 

Dee feels more monstrous than the bandits who shot P.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> self indulgence lesbians just because :)

**Author's Note:**

> updates every weekend !  
> [reblog on tumblr!](https://toffeelemon.tumblr.com/post/623992075692687360/stardust-trail-leading-back-to-you)


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